


Feast of Starlight

by feistymuffin



Category: JackSepticEye (YouTube RPF), Markiplier (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: A little angst with a happy ending, Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Magic AU, Minor Violence, Royalty, Soulmates, Space AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 17:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9281744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feistymuffin/pseuds/feistymuffin
Summary: Prince Sean is fed up with everything his lifestyle has to offer. But then a certain mage is employed under his family, and everything changes.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GalaxyGhosty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyGhosty/gifts).



> This fic is a belated gift to my good friend GalaxyGhosty, and hoo boy did I take my time on it. She's been very patient with me about it all, and been giving input all the while. Here you go, babe, I hope you like it!
> 
>  
> 
> (The title may be subject to change, but it's from a song title for The Hobbit trilogy.)

Jack rests his chin in his hand, watching the proceedings with apathetic boredom. His grandmother is standing before the throne, her throne, bowing her head in sanctimonious respect. Likewise Jack's parents stand at her heels to offer their prayer, heads lowered, and he and his siblings and their spouses all sit in the pews in the first row of the throne room to observe the proceeding and offer prayer as well. 

When he was younger Jack was enchanted with the idea of worshipping a throne. The symbolism alone was enough to tug at his lore-hungry fourteen-year-old mind. As a boy, he entertained the idea that his grandmother was the most benevolent, the most kind because of her utmost care for the throne, her dedication to the prayer and what its purpose was. 

He was told, when he had asked, that the reason they prayed was to keep humility alive and well in every king or queen, to preserve their humble sensibilities and always have them put their people--their base of power--first, above all else. When Jack was a boy, well, he was enchanted. Now he just sees it as the ritualistic farce that it is.

The throne itself is a bit of a redundancy. His grandmother never sits on the thing, and it's just more symbolism--Jack long ago surmised that the throne represented the kingdom's population of commoners, the "average" citizen--but she bows to it every morning to worship the past rulers, present people, and future happenings, as does each queen or king. His grandmother bows to no one, nothing else except the throne.

While impressive in theory, it's the single most infuriatingly wasteful event of Jack's day. And it happens _every day._

After prayer, he goes to meet his friend Felix at the sparring field. The young lord is nowhere to be found when he arrives, however, so he makes his way into the locker room purposefully, the guards' locker room and not the nobles', until he comes across his friend, fresh out of the shower with a towel around his waist. 

"Ah, Felix," Jack says dully. "How surprised I am to find you acting below your station." But then he grins. "Shame that neither of our parents are around to see it."

The tall blond grunts, towelling himself off as Jack faces the opposite direction. "Yeah, right, if my mother saw me showering with the guards again she'd tan my hide, despite me being a fully grown and moved out man." He quickly dresses into his clothes, a long-sleeved white silk shirt with a red vest and a pair of dark slacks, embroidered in silver thread as is customary for court nobility. Felix combs his hair through before looking longingly out the locker room doors to the fields. 

"C'mon," Jack cajoles, "before someone finds us here." They leave the locker rooms and Jack leads the way back to the royal quarters. Once locked inside his bedroom, Jack flops wearily into a cushy armchair and sighs. "My mother gave me the grandchild talk again, despite her already having four married children, one with a pregnant wife and the other three persistently trying to get pregnant. It's as if my mother thinks I'm alone strictly because I want to be. She doesn't know me at all, Fe."

Felix shrugs from his spot on Jack's bed, then lays back into the mattress. "I don't know, maybe she just wants to make sure you're not turning into a lonely old cur. Like you are."

"There's being a lonely old cur, and there's being unmarried at twenty-five," Jack snorts. "Both appear to be a death sentence to my mother, however."

"My parents are already pushing me, too," Felix sighs. "Ever since I took over one of Dad's estates, it's been nothing but shoving and craziness to find a suitable girl." He scoffs. "Like the only people worthy of being my soulmate are within the royal court, and female. Your brothers and sisters had it easy. They found their soulmates in nobility, with the opposite sex."

"Lucky bastards," Jack gripes, resting his head on the back of the chair to stare up at the ceiling, painted like the Roman cathedrals on Earth. Jack requested it specifically. One of the few things he appreciates about being a prince? He basically gets whatever trivial bullshit he wants, no strings. 

"Do you ever think about what it's like?" Felix asks thoughtfully. When Jack looks over he sees his spaced-out expression. His eyes are far away. "Having a soulmate, finding them, touching them for the first time and feeling the Brand. Getting to be with them. I wonder what it's like?"

Jack feels his heart squeeze in his chest. "It's probably not even that great," he mutters. "Who knows? I mean, you could end up hating your soulmate and never know it if you don't touch them at all. You could be totally incompatible with them." His voice lowers. "Not to mention what kind of pain you'd be in if they were a commoner, and not noble. My grandmother wouldn't allow such unions." _No, it's better not to find my soulmate,_ Jack thinks, his heart hurting at the mere notion. Less trouble, and a much lower chance of pain.

"Right," Felix says on a sad sigh. He sits up. "Don't suppose you have anything to eat in here? I'm starved."

With a shrug Jack points through the open double doors to his terrace, where a platter of assorted foods lay on the table there. His mother, despite him telling her often that he rarely eats it, insists on having food handy. "It brings an opportunity for socializing at any moment," she said once. Jack just thinks she likes to have control over something in his life, anything she can get her hands on, since he refuses to do pretty much everything to do with royal responsibilities. He's got four older siblings, all married, and that doesn't include his parents. When his grandmother dies he will not be the first choice to replace her.

Jack listens to the sounds of Felix eating on the terrace, mildly dozing. He only slightly jumps when a sharp knock raps on his door before it swings open to admit none other than his grandmother, dressed exquisitely in a flowing dark blue gown with sheer blue material lain overtop like a shawl. She looks ethereal, and scary when she lays her eyes on Jack. This is not a social visit from his Gran. This is an audience with the queen.

Her hands, clasped in front of her primly, raise to motion a hand to Felix outside and then to Jack, who gets to his feet and bows. He hears Felix's squawk of surprise before he too (assumedly) bows.

"Lord Felix," the regent greets coolly, but her eyes are kind. "I see you're still keeping my scamp of a grandson entertained."

"Trying, Your Majesty," he falters, hastening to the doorway. He bows again as he passes her, then waves quickly to Jack and departs. The door shuts behind him, encasing Jack inside with his grandmother.

At once her eyes are on him. "Sean, we have things to discuss."

He greatly resists the urge to groan. Instead licking his lips, Jack hedges, "And what could those be, Gran?"

"Firstly," she begins, delicately lifting her skirt to settle lightly into a chair, "it's become obvious that, while you are present, you are no more praying during prayer than the guards that stand in the room." At Jack's guilty expression, her eyes harden. "And I wonder, what might have happened to such a spirited young boy that loved the culture of his people, the rituals his family performs, to become as lacklustre as the filth under his boots?"

Jack is silent, properly chastised, and she continues in a gentler tone, "As that stands, it isn't too troubling, but it needs rectifying. If you have no respect for this family and what its purpose is, then you have no respect for me and what I do, either. Am I understood?" 

With a small nod Jack murmurs, "Sorry, Your Majesty."

His grandmother lets out a small breath. Her gaze softens considerably as she looks at him. "Jack," she says quietly. "I don't like to scold you, but sometimes you must do things you don't want to do. Such as, lay down the law or participate in a prayer." She winks with a quick flash of teeth, and Jack smiles.

"Secondly," she carries on in a stronger tone, "your mother and father have informed me that you've refused to be trained for regency. I had hoped your friend Felix would incur in you some sense of pride for your purpose in life, but it seems that his gallivanting about with the guardsmen has dulled his sense of duty." Jack hides his alarm, but he must show something outwardly because his grandmother tuts, "Like I wouldn't be aware of his indiscretion. He can insult his position all he pleases, but he is still a lord, you still a crown prince, and you both have outfought your circumstances long enough. You're older than any of your siblings were before they gained titles and spread their wings to take leave of this nest."

"Gran--" he protests, but she lifts a perfectly manicured hand and he shuts his mouth.

"It's already been decided," she says firmly. "You will begin regency training the instant that you have found your soulmate."

His soulmate. As it is, Jack stands a fair chance of never finding his soulmate since he's not actively or even passively searching for his. And even if he was, even with the unexplainable bond between soulmates that supposedly draws their lives together so they do somehow meet, the chances of his soulmate being someone from a different planet, in any of the handful of colonized star systems, is exponential. Finding his soulmate... that could take, well, forever. Jack nearly breathes a sigh of relief, but contains himself. "And what happens if I don't find them?" he asks, hesitant.

"There will be no such situation," his grandmother says, voice stern. "Already I have sent out invitations to eligible lords and ladies, anyone appropriate within your age group. You will be exposed to as many partners as possible, and we will find you your soulmate so you can stop this nonsense and take to your lifestyle properly."

His stomach careens down to the soles of his feet and stays there, leaving Jack with a feeling of imbalance and loss. As his grandmother stands he follows suit and gets to his feet, a strange numbing calm overtaking his body.

"I trust you will take this matter seriously," she says, and it's not a request. Neither is, "And you will begin respecting what it is we do, and actively participate during prayer." Wordlessly Jack nods, and she turns to the door. "Enjoy the rest of your day, Sean." She taps a knuckle once on the door and it swings open, a guard on the other side. She exits without a backward glance, back straight and head high like the queen she is.

Jack sits, for fear of his knees giving out on him, and sees the conversation for what it really was. The loss of his last shred of freedom.

 

The following days blur together. In the mornings, Jack puts effort into his prayers, rushing through his thanks to his ancestors and his people so he can be done with it that much sooner. The day following the visit from his grandmother, the rest of his morning is consumed with tailoring, because apparently he needs flashier and more ridiculous clothing to instil love in his potential soulmates. The few days after that he spends his free time in the late morning sparring with Felix in the fields, utilizing various weapons against one another in friendly competition to burn off energy and stress. 

During the afternoons he is subjected to endless counsel, brushed up on how he ought to address suitors, how he should act. As if he hadn't been bred into politeness and tact. But he withholds his tongue each time he wants to snap at the fool telling him how to court someone, how to express interest without being forward or brash, but also not be too cautious. Nothing the man says makes sense anyway, so Jack tunes most of it out.

The evenings are his free time, but they're often full of his family. He's sitting on a sofa in his parents' living quarters and it's been almost a week after Queen Wilhelmina sacrificed her youngest grandson's happiness for the good of the family image, because it really is nothing else. She wouldn't be pushing this on him if she wanted him to be happy. Jack had thought, of all his siblings, he was closest with his grandmother. He remembers playing with her as a boy, listening avidly as she told him stories and legends through all his childhood. Somewhere down the line of his minor but repeated indiscretions and careless attitude towards being royalty, his grandmother lost faith in him. She's taking the control out of his hands, just like his mother's been trying to do for years.

Thankfully his brothers have grown tired of teasing him about being babysat into courtships, and his sisters' empathies wane when they see he won't improve his mood or outlook on his circumstances, so for the moment he's free of their haranguing. He stares around the room at his siblings, scattered on assorted pieces of furniture, and his father overlooking the view of the grounds through the wide windows. His mother is at her makeshift desk in the space, a large bar area with comfortable stools and an overabundant selection of liquors behind the bar in glass-front cabinets, mostly imported from Earth. Jack meanders to the cabinet and pours himself a gin and tonic. His mother gives him a shrewd look but doesn't comment on it, instead turning back to her papers diligently. Scowling over his glass at her Jack empties it, setting the glass down on the bar top. His mother glances up again, reading glasses low on her nose. 

"Can I help you, Sean?" she asks, not without irritation. "I thought we were beyond the age of muted staring contests until your father or I am able to guess what it is you want."

Jack hears Malcolm snickering in the corner as he browses over his father's new books. He sends Malcolm a hot glare before saying, nonchalant, "It's nothing, Ma. I was just wondering who it is that ratted me out to Gran. She crawled up my ass last week and has stayed there since."

"Language," his father says mildly, as if merely out of habit.

Hannah fixes the lay of her skirt over her legs as she sits prettily on a chaise. "I believe you have Seamus to blame for that, baby brother. He was expressing his concerns about you to her just last month."

Jack turns on his brother, glaring. Seamus looks casually undeterred as he lounges across the entirety of a sofa, polished boots propped up at one end and his head cushioned at the other. "Seamus. What the fuck."

"Language, Sean," his father scolds but doesn't even turn.

"Excuse me," Jack says graciously. Then, "What the _fucking shit,_ Seamus?"

"Sean William," his mother snaps. "Watch that mouth, or I won't hesitate to get the new court magician to wash it out until you're sneezing bubbles."

Jack perks curiously. "There's a new court magician? Who is it?"

Hannah comes to him from her spot near their father, smiling wide. "His name is Mark, and he's quite young for a mage. Supposedly he was referred by one of Earth's leaders, when one such mage was requested in the latest trade."

"Is he a slave, then?" Jack says, frowning.

"No, the new trade deals are much more voluntary-based now," Hannah muses, poking Jack in the chest. "Gran made sure of that after she came to the throne."

Now that he's reminded of it, Jack remembers that being a bone of contention between his people and Earth for quite some time when he was younger. "And he's here, what? For entertaining?"

Hannah shrugs. "I guess, yeah. He's to replace the old one that retired last season."

Nodding Jack murmurs, "I'll have to find him and introduce myself sometime." Then glancing up, he spears Seamus with a fierce look. "Don't think I forgot about you throwing me to Gran's whims, you snake."

Seamus smirks and, if possible, lounges more comfortably. "Jackie, you're too funny."

"Don't call me that!" Jack snarls, grabbing a book off the bar and hurling it at him. It hits his leg and makes a considerable thwack sound, but Seamus shows no reaction. Jack throws his hands up and says waspishly, "Either one of my parental figures could step in and, I don't know, parent their unbelievably conniving child."

"Don't throw things, Sean," his mother says distractedly, already swamped in her papers again. Jack gives her an incredulous look.

First Crown Prince Hugh McLoughlin turns from the window and studies Seamus, then Jack. "Seamus, explain yourself."

His brother groans, sitting up with a huff. "It was just a bit of fun, Pa. Plus, Jack doesn't do shit like the rest of us, and he needs to take responsibility."

Jack makes an angry noise in his throat, but his father holds up a hand to quiet him. "Sean isn't married, or even courting yet, and until he does he has no more duties than you did when you were unmarried and unoccupied. Telling his grandmother to act upon his life was out of line, young man." Seamus looks petulant, a peculiar look on a twenty-seven-year-old man with a bushy beard. "Consider yourself on house arrest until further notice."

Seamus stands abruptly. "Pa, come on, that's outrageous! I was just--"

"Julianna," Jack's father intones, glancing at his wife.

The woman in question looks up from her work, blue eyes steely with anger at yet another disruption. "If we have to tell you what is acceptable and what is not, perhaps Sean is not the one who requires lessons in manners." Seamus opens his mouth and his mother barks, "Be quiet! That's quite enough backtalk." She sighs audibly through her nose. "Everyone out, this evening is over."

Glumly Jack makes his way to the door that leads out to the hall, following Hannah. He looks over his shoulder but his parents have their backs turned and their heads together in deep conversation. 

Megan waylays him on his way back to his chambers, looking gleeful. "Hey, Jack, want to go find that court mage? I hear he's hotter than that Earth actor from the two thousand twenties, you know the one I like, the one who's in that film? Well, apparently he's like, immensely hotter than him. Lady Bethany told me, and her estate is like right next to the admissions court. She would totally know."

"Considering I have no idea who you mean, yeah, I can really picture his hotness," Jack says drolly. While not impressed in the least by Megan's delivery, Jack does want to see the new court magician. "But I did mean to find him and introduce myself. May as well get it out of the way, so if nothing else I know his face."

"And from what I hear, it's quite the face," Megan titters excitedly, then leads the way to the dining hall at a brisk pace. She takes the main staircase down to the ground floor, almost as broad as the room itself and cascading with luxurious carpets patterned in stylish colours. The wide staircase unfolds into the main receiving hall, a large room that's more often than not just a high traffic area as servant and noble alike make their way from one room or section of the palace to another. 

She takes Jack's hand and pulls him along when his speed doesn't suit her well enough. She diverts through the receiving hall and down the main hallway in the northwest corner, to Jack's left. Carrying on until she ducks through a side hall and comes out into the kitchens, Megan lets him go to manoeuvre around the multitude of bodies in the space. Jack tries his best to stay on her heels. 

"Stars, Meg, why couldn't we just go the normal way?" Jack asks her exasperatedly.

"Because I have to enter like a princess," she hisses.

"Meg, you're married," Jack feels the need to remind her. "What the hell are you doing getting in a fit over another man?"

"I need eye candy while Deus is away," she says, and there's a mournful note to her voice that hits Jack in the part of his heart that he denies exists--the soulmate part. "Lady Bethany said the court mage is a brunet, like Deus. I just want to talk to him for a while."

_How sad one gets when separated from their mate,_ Jack thinks with a twinge of pity. "Okay, alright," he relents, because Megan is looking like she's about to cry if Jack doesn't let her have her fun. "It's not like you're taking any men back to your rooms. Right?" he adds uncertainly, nose wrinkled.

"Ha ha," Megan snorts, then tugs him along in her wake as she continues to advance into the dining hall. As they hasten down the back hallway, leading to the grand doors without actually coming all the way down the wide main hallway, they hear the volume of merriment increasing. Obligingly Jack opens the doors for Megan's entry, and a small hush comes over the patrons inside as they're met with the youngest two of the royal family.

A door guard inside announces, "Her Royal Highness Megan McLoughlin, and His Royal Highness Sean McLoughlin," and butts the end of his plasma halberd against the floor. Jack winces at his real name, as he alway does. Despite his trying, no matter how much he asks the guards they won't use his nickname. 

The crowd of people inside spread out slightly to see the new arrivals, and Jack lets Megan pave the way into the room. She glides gracefully to the people present, Jack following at an easy meander. Megan graciously accepts the hand kisses she's offered by the men, nods kindly to the women who curtsy. 

When the nobles go to repeat the process to Jack, he just shakes his head and murmurs, "Please, there's no need." Their confusion is evident, but Jack isn't here for them. 

In the centre of the crowd stands a man in official court mage garb, a burgundy silk shirt and white vest embroidered on the left side of the chest with the McLoughlin family crest. His pants are, amazingly, just a pair of jeans, and his shoes are sneakers. Jack's so blindsided by the sight of such commoner clothing, things that he's only allowed to wear in the safety of his quarters, that a small laugh escapes him before he can catch it.

The sound attracts the attention of his object of focus. The man turns, and Jack sees that his dark hair is cut short on the sides and left long on top, a common style--Jack's own hairstyle, in fact--even in nobility. But what's unusual about this man's hair is that the long strands on top are dyed a bright, vibrant red, an unnatural tone even if red was his regular hair colour. The man's skin is several shades darker than Jack's, and the shape of his warm brown eyes indicates some variation of Asian descent, but his face structure and the lines of his jaw lean towards Caucasian. His shoulders are broader than Jack's, which he tries not to feel bitter about. His build is stockier, and he even appears to be a couple inches taller.

Jack doesn't much like him, if he's honest. 

"Your Highnesses," the man greets kindly, bowing deeply at the waist. Megan simpers, giggling as she lets him take her hand and kiss it. "Such a pleasure. I've had the privilege of meeting your elder brothers, His Royal Highness Sir Malcolm and His Royal Highness Seamus, as well. I'm Mark Fischbach, your newly acquired court magician." He bows again, but this time as he does, a spiral of sparks fires upwards from the ground in front of him, seemingly from nowhere, and pops into a shower of sparkling dust that rains down on them.

_Right, magic,_ Jack thinks as he studies the film of dust settling on his clothes, the people around him applauding at the show. Thinking nothing of it, he observes as his sister prattles on and on, Mark just nodding and smiling. A warm, tickling itch settles between his shoulder blades and Jack shifts, uncomfortable. When the feeling persists--no, intensifies--Jack frowns. He doesn't know if it's because he hasn't seen magic like that up close in a long time and it's made him nervous, or just because the man's magic is affecting him for some reason, but the skin along his shoulders and arms is warming alarmingly fast, exactly where the iridescent powder lay on his body. Jack tries to shrug off the feeling, but it doesn't ease. 

Megan claps, poofs of sparkling dust erupting from her hands, as Mark performs another small trick--a small woman made of fire that dances on his palm. Evidently she's pleased at the display. "Wonderful, Mark! What a thrill!" She seems completely uncaring of the powder and whatever effects it may or may not be causing, as do the people around him. No one seems bothered at all by the dust.

_Can someone be allergic to magic?_ Jack wonders. He should make a point to ask someone, or read up on it. He doesn't remember it being at issue with the last court magician. As Jack recalls, the older gentleman was very kind, and his magic very fun for a young mind. But as he grew older he lost the affinity for watching the elderly man spin a circle of fire through his hands for the fiftieth time. 

He brushes distractedly at the sparkly covering on his sleeve... and now his hand is coated in the stuff. Instantly his hand crawls with feeling as if something was walking across it with fire-hot feathers for feet. He wipes his hand on his pant leg but the feeling doesn't abate, not even a little.

"Your Highness?" calls a voice, and Jack's head snaps up to meet the magician's eyes. Chocolate brown, soft and inviting. "Is everything alright? You're getting very red."

"Can someone be allergic to magic?" he asks, instead of answering the question that he doesn't know the answer to. The sensation, like little fingers shooting electric charges along his skin over and over, is all across his shoulders and down his arms, covering his scalp and concentrated hard on his one hand. He even feels it on the spot on his thigh where he wiped his hand.

"I--I don't know," Mark falters, looking curious and alarmed at the question. "Why, do you feel ill? Did something happen?" Then all at once he's frantic. "Was it my--? Your Highness, I'm sorry, I didn't mean--there's nothing in that spell that's malicious, I swear--"

"Hush," Megan says, waving a hand and not even looking his way, and Mark quiets abruptly. "Jack, hon, you're looking awful," Megan says worriedly, taking him by the hand. "Oh, your skin is burning!" she exclaims.

"I'm..." But Jack doesn't get to explain what he is, because the world grows dark around him and then he only knows the abyss.

 

"So unlike him," are the first words that come to Jack's ears as he stirs from a starlit dream, full of colour and magic, himself and his family and a faceless entity that he chases and chases that is never within reach. All the while a strange, endless feeling of having missed something along the way plagues him. His skin tingles everywhere as he rouses slowly from the drowsy clutches of his dream, like someone's drawing a sparking wire over his flesh, and then the sensation dissipates into nothing.

He attempts a stretch and grits his teeth when all that brings is a tense feeling through his body, every muscle clenching at once before loosening again. By the state he's in, he's not capable of much beyond a huff of air, so he's content to lay with his eyes closed before he tries to get up.

The people around him, whoever they may be, make a small commotion when it's obvious he's awake. Jack creaks an eye open, then shuts it again when he sees Seamus first. "Of all the prats in the world to wake up to," he grumbles.

He hears his mother's loud laugh, the real one that she lets free when she's actually amused and not her fake, social laugh. "He's the same, at least," she chuckles. 

Jack opens his eyes, and his sense of sight supplies that he's in his bedroom and in bed. His family, the entirety of it--even his grandmother--crowd around his bedside. "What happened?" he asks, shifting in an attempt to sit up, this time without pain. His father leans forward to help prop him up to sit against his headboard. His memory is foggy, but he recalls his vision blackening and then... "Did I faint? Really?" Jack grimaces when no one disputes him. "Great."

"That fool magician cast some spell and--and magically tased you, or something," Malcolm says huffily. His arms are crossed and he looks pissed, every inch the indignantly offended and overprotective older brother.

"He was completely surprised, though," Jack argues, rubbing his face and extremely pleased to see not even a trace of magic powder on his hand. The constant heating sensation it caused is long gone as well. "He had no idea what happened either."

"That's true," Megan says, thoughtful. "Mark was totally like, "Whoa what the hell?" And he was freaking out, thinking we thought he did it on purpose."

Hugh studies his youngest children, then sighs and turns to his mother, who stands at the foot of the bed with a concerned expression. "Well, I don't think the magician is at fault after all."

Wilhelmina nods, her eyes never moving from her bedridden grandson. "Yes, it seems we were hasty without all the facts. Have him released at once." This she says to a familiar guard at the door, the First Officer of her private guard, who bows and quickly takes his leave.

"You didn't have the guy jailed, did you?" Jack asks hesitantly, but he knows the answer from what he just saw. "Why? He didn't do anything but cast magic that, for whatever odd reason, I was the only one who it took badly to." Which, Jack supposes that sucked, but he's not about to blame the poor guy if it was just an accident.

"Yes, but when you collapsed and the news was brought to us, everything got a little hectic," Seamus says, shrugging as if he couldn't care less. 

"And we still don't know why his magic even affected you like that," Hannah adds worriedly. "It was mostly a precaution, just in case something had gone wrong." 

"Right," Jack says tiredly. "Well, I feel perfectly fine, if a little sore. So can I get up?"

In unison his family members turn to look at his grandmother, who purses her lips before relenting, "Yes, I don't see why not. But I'd like someone with you, at least until nightfall tomorrow."

That's probably as good as he'll get. "Alright," he says, then swings his legs out of bed. He stands on his own without difficulty, even though Malcolm and his father both tense up like they'll have to catch him as he falls. Jack knows they mean well, and being the youngest child of five--and royalty to boot--he knows he's coddled a little when things go awry for him, so he withstands his family's mother hen-ing. 

Letting out a grunt as he stretches, Jack straightens and asks, "What time is it anyway?"

"A little before eight," his mother replies. "You were only out for a few minutes."

"Felix ought to be out and about still," he mutters to himself. Louder he states, "I'm off to find Felix. He'll be my supervision until the end of the day."

"Very well," his grandmother says. "I'll be sure to have a guard posted at your door tonight."

Jack makes a face but he says, "Okay." He catches Gran's look of amusement before her smile slips into her default regal expression again. Before Jack leaves, he ensures that his room empties of people until he's the last one out. Ahead of him Megan and Hannah pause, drawing his attention when they turn to face him.

"Jack," they both say at once, then Hannah carries on, "d'you want to go see the magician?"

He's twice as trepidatious to see the man since the last time he heard that question. Honestly, Jack's not too persevered to see the guy again. Nothing against him personally, but... Mark Fischbach has magic that does not agree with him, it seems, and it sounds logical that the farther he is from him, the better. "Eh, is that such a great idea?" he hazards, eyeing them both. They're up to something.

"I just think he'd be really relieved to see that you're okay, and he didn't hurt you at all," Megan adds brightly, too brightly. 

Jack narrows his eyes. "Sure," he says slowly, suspicious. 

"Great!" Megan grabs one arm, Hannah the other, and together they cart him through the palace, down a main hallway and over into the west wing of the palace, all the way to the servants' area. The few servants currently in the area pale at the sight of three of the royal family, but they keep their cool for the most part, and Jack lingers with his sisters as they wait for... something.

"Ladies, not that I don't love wasting time with you here," Jack says, rubbing at his left eye, "but I get the feeling that he's not here. I'm assuming we're waiting for him to just magically appear, yes? Pop out of thin air like Harry Potter?"

"Nothing so dramatic, Your Highness," a deep voice replies, and Jack turns to see the man in question at the end of the short hall, having just entered from a door leading out to the grounds. He comes up to the trio of siblings but stops short by several feet, then bows. "I see you're up and about. Are you feeling alright?" Mark's expression is furrowed, his brow low with worry.

"Never better," Jack says easily, and although it's not true--he is feeling a bit off, physically--he's not above telling a white lie so someone else doesn't waste time worrying about him. Politeness dictates that Jack adds, "I'm sorry about your being captured, and being thrown in jail. Over magic dust."

Mark laughs and shrugs it off, like he's arrested for magical mishaps often. His eyes wander Jack's body in a calculating way, and Jack supposes he's looking for a visible indication that Jack is some kind of peculiar human capable of allergies to magic tricks. "I'm sorry that... whatever happened, happened. I can safely say it's never occurred with me before."

Jack glances at his sisters, who are both nearly vibrating out of their skin with anticipation. He frowns, leaning to whisper at them, "Both of you had better be prepared to tell me why you're acting like idiots."

Megan sticks out her tongue in response, and Hannah just grins. Jack grunts, rubbing his face and turning back to the mage. "Well, obviously I'm fine. No harm, no foul, and all that." He pauses, eyes meeting Mark's. "In the future, though, I think a wide berth for both of us would be a good idea."

Mark's expression falls somewhat, but he recovers quickly. "Yes, of course, Your Highness. I'll watch to make sure I don't overstep any boundaries." He smiles, but Jack's always prided himself on being able to read most people's faces, see the lies in them. Mark's smile is a fake one.

The way he words it makes Jack wince. "No, that's not what I meant," he falters. "I'll be careful, you don't have to do anything."

"Mark, as a family we'd like to apologize," Megan says soulfully, making Jack turn and squint at her. "Would you come to dine with us tomorrow evening?"

"We won't take no for an answer," Hannah says sweetly, when Mark opens his mouth to probably decline. "It's the least we could do, since this whole fiasco is at least half our fault."

Personally Jack doesn't think anyone is to blame, but there's the women of his family for you--they'll take the blame in a heartbeat if it means they'll get to spend more time with the admittedly very attractive Mark the mage. He scowls at his sisters, knowing that they're acting strange but not for the life of him knowing why. To what end are they driving?

"Ah, I suppose I could attend," Mark says after a beat, his voice wary. _You and me both, buddy,_ Jack muses to himself. "Thank you, Your Highnesses. What time should I be there? Erm, also, where am I going?"

Hannah laughs, high-pitched like a bell. "Oh, that's so funny, I keep forgetting you're brand new here." Jack eyes her skeptically. The man just arrived. He hadn't even met the entirety of their family yet. How could she not remember, even for a second, that he's a newcomer? "Well, we usually dine in our mother's quarters, Julianna is her name, and that's in the east wing, right by the doors leading to the outdoor pool." At Mark's blank, slightly horrified look, Hannah laughs again. "Oh, never mind, we'll send a guard for you when dinner's ready. Should be no later than six."

At this much more useful information, Mark nods. His eyes slide over to Jack, giving him another once-over. Jack is beginning to suspect the nature of those looks is not analytical. Before he can get puffed up about it or ask what that's about, though, Mark's lips spread into a tentative smile and all the baseless anger whisks out of Jack like so much air. The guy's got such a great smile, it's impossible to be mad at him for just being... well, immensely better-looking and more gregarious than Jack, and it's not as if leering is a crime. _I should be flattered,_ Jack tells himself.

"We'll see you then, Mark," he says, and Jack's gaze lingers when he meets his eyes. He only looks away once he's aware of his sisters hovering, eagerly watching him hold eye contact with a stranger. Jack lets out a long sigh.

 

The next day, Jack pretty much spends all his time wasting away in his room with Felix. The heat is unbearable outside today, so no sparring or physical activity. All the windows and doors are shut tight so the cool air circulates within the palace and leaves the hot stickiness of outside where it belongs.

"So," Jack grunts, rolling onto his back and sitting up on his bed. His best friend is sitting crossways in an armchair, legs slung over one side and torso draped back over the other. The blond turns to face him, a silent motion to say that he's listening. "That magician is coming over to have dinner with my family, and I just know my sisters are up to some diabolical shit. They were twittering idiots yesterday when they fully insisted that we go see this guy after the whole magic powder fainting spell thing. Total, complete idiots. Like they were in front of their soulmat--" Abruptly Jack stops, thinking hard. The one thing he's not entitled to in his silver-spoon-sucking life, and the one thing his family insists that he have above all else, is a soulmate. If his sisters had even one inkling that he might have chemistry with someone--even when they're so blind they can't see that, no, Jack does not have chemistry with Mark--they would go hell for leather to try and make it all work out. 

"What?" Felix demands, sitting up properly and fixating on Jack. "What's wrong?"

"My sisters are evil," he hisses, grabbing a pillow and slamming it down onto the floor in a mini fit of rage. "Those harpies! They're trying to set me up with the mage!"

"The mage has a name," Felix replies, amused. "It's Mark. Coming from someone who despises the use of title and station in exchange for level of manners and decency given, that's pretty hypocritical of you to just call him "the mage"."

Jack deflates all at once, shoulders sagging. "I know."

Felix studies him. "What is up with you about this guy? Why have you got your back up? From all you've said about him, he seems really nice."

Jack shrugs, feeling a ghostly sensation of the restless itching heat that the glowing dust gave him. "I don't know, I mean, I just... He's just..."

"And would you be so stubbornly against him--for no reason, I might add--if he hadn't doused you with magical fairy dust and made you swoon and faint?" Felix asks.

"There was no swooning," Jack says angrily, pointing warningly at Felix. But at the smug, entertained look on Felix's face he caves and laughs, mostly at himself. "Shit, alright. I'm being a prick for nothing, I get it."

"Then don't let your whatever-it-is attitude for this guy get in the way of having a nice, normal dinner to thank him for putting up with your insane family," Felix advises. "And just keep an eye on your sisters, okay? Don't kill them, and try your hardest not to maim them."

"Absolutely no promises," Jack grins.

Felix and Jack play video games in his parlour--which Jack has basically converted into a game room--until it's time for Jack to get ready for dinner. He waves at Felix as he goes, waits until the door shuts behind him, and then strips so he can change from casual clothing and into more formal clothes. Admittedly all of his formal outfits are basically the same. Silk shirts with gold embroidery, vests and suit jackets, some with jewels embedded in the lapels, and slacks of various shades of brown, grey and black. Jack also has a wide array of jewelry but he foregoes the lot of it. Wearing rings just encourages people to try and kiss his hands. Jack chooses a nicer version of what he just had on, a green silk shirt with a grey vest over it, and a grey jacket and slacks. 

Jack sighs as he studies his reflection in his large, ornate standing mirror. What he wouldn't give to wear a pair of jeans and some sneakers.

He's the second-last to arrive to dinner, as his mother impatiently informs him. The last is, of course, Mark. Jack waits in the sitting room with his family, doing anything but sitting patiently and waiting courteously for their guest to arrive. His nerves are a bit of a mess, his fingers twitching in his lap. He resists gnawing on his lip or fidgeting, for fear of drawing his mother's ire about nervous tics. The strangest part for Jack is, he can't even figure out why he's nervous.

Jack jumps to his feet when the parlour doors open, two door guards admitting a sheepish-looking Mark over the threshold. He's replaced the sneakers and jeans for--well, nicer sneakers, but his pants are formal, at least, as black slacks. He's still wearing his court uniform, though, and Jack frowns at that. Does Mark not have any other formal clothing? Not that he cares, but it would be nice to see him in something else.

Catching his train of thought, Jack frowns deeply. It doesn't concern him what Mark wears, and he doesn't care about the man or his wardrobe.

Mark bends jerkily into a bow, wary eyes flicking between the people in the room. "Er, good evening, Your Majesties."

Smiling, Megan comes forward, dressed nicely--as are the rest of his family--in a flowing off-white gown with a sweetheart neckline, diamonds circling her throat and dripping from her ears. She takes Mark's hand as if he's an old friend, holding them in hers gently and saying, "Welcome, Mark! We're so glad to have you. You've met Seamus, and Malcolm, my older brothers. Then there's Hannah, you saw her last night." She pauses and Mark nods hurriedly, his shoulders halfway to his ears. He looks so uncomfortable that Jack just wants to tell him he can leave. "These are my parents, Julianna and Hugh." The First Crown Prince and Princess each give a smile, but not much else. "Obviously you know my grandmother, Queen Wilhelmina." The queen gives a minute nod to acknowledge him, and Mark quickly bows again. 

She pauses again and here, Megan's face turns devious. Jack feels the blood rush from his face, but then it floods back when she immediately gestures to him, moving aside so Mark's direct line of sight is now on her younger sibling. "And, we all know you're acquainted with my brother."

Mark flushes, and he bows a third time. "I am still really sorry about that," he says instantly as he straightens.

Jack grimaces, folding his arms over his chest and ignoring his mother's tut of disapproval at the too-casual action. "Please stop bowing," Jack mutters. "At this rate we'll be liable to pay for the back surgery you'll require."

A small laugh falls from Mark's lips. "Understood, Your Highness."

Grimacing harder, Jack adds, "Just Jack will do."

He sees the familiar confusion flicker across Mark's face as he compares his nickname with the name he was given as a formal introduction yesterday. Before he can voice whatever questions he has, however, Jack's mother says with muted anger, "Actually, _Your Highness_ will do quite nicely." 

Jack turns to her, his brow low, before facing Mark again. "Well, now that you've been introduced I'm sure my family would love to roast you themselves for the details of yesterday--over dinner, of course. Let's indulge them."

"Er," Mark hesitates, as his mother and grandmother both glare at Jack for his bad manners.

Megan smiles, taking Mark's hand again and tugging him along to the dining room. "Don't mind them, they like to fight. It's a family thing." 

"O-okay," Mark says, unsure but given no choice but to follow. 

After his grandmother the men of his family file out, trailing Megan and her captive. Hannah lingers, her gaze going between Jack and their mother before Julianna sends her a sharp look that suggests she leave or be prepared to bear the brunt of the row about to unfold. Warily his eldest sister gives Jack a long, sympathetic look before she makes her way after the others. Jack waits until only his mother and he remain in the room. Her gaze weighs on him like boulders. The door shuts with a click, and she stands. "Sean, I don't know where I went wrong with you, but--"

"Enough, Ma," he snaps, and her expression hardens. "I'm a big boy, and I can decide for myself if I want someone to call me a title or by my own name."

"The amount of disrespect that would imply if anyone were to ever address you as such in front of others--" she begins firmly, with evident temper.

"Will reflect on the family, I know," he growls. "Everything does."

Julianna's face is a mask of strong disapproval. "You let the meaning of the title overpower the fact that you are the one who controls how people see you, and then claim it is the other way around." She waves her hand flippantly, as if to emphasize that he himself is thinking flippantly. 

Jack snorts, a rude sound that he knows his mother hates. "And am I given the liberty to do what I please, to define what and who I am as a person, instead of this title?"

"With this occupation there are obligations, and--"

"And I want none of them!" Jack barks at her. His mother frowns deeply. "This position is an obligation in itself, and I don't want it!" Gritting his teeth, Jack sighs hard. "To never overstep my limitations, to do what I'm told without question despite being told that no one tells us what to do. All of it is a hopeless, futile circus of pompous emotions and political decisions masking the real problem, that I'm a puppet in my own family."

Julianna opens her mouth but before she can speak, a stern voice calls out, "That is enough." Mother and son turn to the dining room doors, partially opened to reveal the queen. She doesn't look impressed. "If the two of you are finished arguing over things unchangeable, then please come join the rest of us for our meal."

With a harsh sigh Jack moves into the dining room after his grandmother, his mother on his heels. He takes his seat next to Malcolm and, with a cross look at Megan, notes that Mark sits opposite him. The mage smiles at him, a nervous action, and Jack restrains himself from offering him to take his leave. _No one deserves to withstand my whole family all at once,_ Jack thinks with wry humour. He doesn't smile back at first, though, the argument with his mother fresh in his mind, and after a moment Mark looks away.

The first course is served, servants in white gloves and tuxedos bustling into the room with bowls of soup and towels over their arms. As Jack watches Mark suffer with the assortment of utensils, he takes pity on him. "No, not that one," he says gently, as Mark goes to reach for the spoon nearest the plate. "The one beside it."

Mark goes pink and he nods but doesn't look up as he takes the correct spoon. Jack turns to his own soup, sighing when he hears his mother's _tsk_ to his left, supposedly at him having to assist Mark, or at Mark's lack of thanks. He eats in the heavy silence, his eyes occasionally flicking up to Mark, but the magician doesn't look at him again.

Some time after the main course is served--roasted quail--Jack's father clears his throat and says, "So, Mr. Fischbach. I hear through the grape vine that you come quite highly recommended." 

Startled, Mark looks up from his attempts at dismantling his bird. "Oh, er, yes, I suppose," he falters. "I--the president of my home country is actually a family friend. He informed me of the trade he was requested and he said I got first dibs, if I wanted it." 

"And did you leave any family behind, when you came here?" Julianna asks somewhat stiffly, sipping her champagne. Her brow low, she looks as if she's ready to flay the next person to approach her unnecessarily.

Mark shakes his head. "My brother is already here as a scribe, and my parents are both gone. No one else beyond that, I'm afraid."

"No wife or girlfriend that you had to leave, or bring along?" Megan asks, sharing a speaking look with Hannah, who both then look at their brother. Jack rolls his eyes, perhaps stabbing his quail with more force than necessary. 

"Nope," Mark says, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he understood the looks between Jack's sisters. If he looked uncomfortable before, now he looks positively unstable.

"And your powers are unparalleled, I'm told by my courtiers," the queen muses, hands steepled as she pauses in eating. "Even on Earth, where mages are in surplus. It seems you've started quite the tizzy in a number of the women in court, and a fair share of men as well. You're something of a rare commodity here."

Mark flushes but he also laughs, covering his mouth to stifle its loudness. "Sorry. That's just... It's funny to think of myself like that. I'm just a magical kid from Cincinnati, not this grandiose guy that everyone likes to think I am."

Jack's mood lifts at hearing this. Mark's situation, while not exactly the same, is similar to his own. They're both trapped by names, expectations, and birthrights. He focuses on the man across him, feeling a sense of kindredness. 

"Your skills, though, I mean, you must have worked really hard," Megan says, taking a bite of fowl. "You went to a college for magic, I'll bet."

At this Mark looks sheepish. "I did, and I graduated with honours and three awards."

Hugh whistles, impressed. "And I heard you went to the Institute of Arcane Arts in New York, as well. Very prestigious." He points his fork at Mark in emphasis. "The way my good friend Lord Rowan tells it, you're also quite the teacher."

"Oh, Lord Rowan is being a flirt, as always," Mark chuckles. "I tutored his son a couple years ago on Earth, when they were there for the Olympics. Taught him a few things. Lord Rowan was extremely hospitable."

"By which you mean he spoiled you entirely," Julianna says primly, a note of distaste in her voice. "Acting so far below his rank, and for so experienced a courtier..."

"It's not demeaning to be kind and welcoming, Mother," Jack says, halfway to a snarl. She sends him a scalding look. The tension draws out and Mark shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Jack, seeing this, straightens up and squares his shoulders slightly. He's not exactly being the most welcoming himself, picking fights with his mother left and right. _Better to keep the snark to a minimum,_ Jack thinks with a sigh. A good idea, since a near-complete stranger is having dinner with his entire family. 

"So, Mark," Jack says, and the mage looks at him. "How are you finding Crescentia? Is it like anywhere on Earth?"

Mark gives a chuckle, evidently having given up on his quail to focus on Jack. "Not at all, but not in a bad way. Earth has its cities, with skyscrapers and miraculous works of engineering and architecture. The planet is a staple of modern technology and innovation. But, here..." He leads off, shrugging with a small smile. "It's difficult to explain. Magic is everywhere here, in everything. Everyone." At this he looks into Jack's eyes, penetrating and a bit serious. "On the topic of magic, I've been thinking about what happened when I performed that small firework spell. Maybe you have magic in you that reacted against mine negatively?"

Before Jack can even speak his grandmother is shaking her head, saying, "Nonsense. All my children and grandchildren have been tested for magic, and none have any to speak of."

"If that's the case," Mark sighs, "then I really do have no explanation for what happened."

Jack's father smiles at Mark. "Don't fret. It's past and done, and no one is harmed or even scarred for life." He adds a wink to assure Mark he's joking, and the Terran smiles nervously.

Mark turns his eyes fully on Jack, then, and there's something searching in them. Jack gives him a wary look. "Still looking for the answer to our conundrum?" he asks. Mark jerks, seemingly surprised, which Jack finds curious since he was looking right at him. "About the magic, why it burned me."

"It burned you?" Mark exclaims, then immediately lowers his voice when the queen and first crown princess look on in disapproval. "You never said that it burned you."

Jack shrugs, rubbing absently at his shoulder as the memory of the sensation lingers. "It wasn't an actual physical burn, since when the dust was gone nothing was wrong. But it felt... it felt like fire on my skin, like little needlepoint brands." 

His sisters perk like daisies out of snow at the word "brand", and Jack knows where they'll go with this, where they'll take that meaning and that word. Soulmates, and the Brand, and happily ever after. Jack's not one to be cynical, but the Brand is something that he will never experience in his life, that he's sure of. He will never meet his soulmate, and if he does, they won't be good enough for his family, and it will end--Brand or not. That's all there is to it.

_Unless my mother and Gran get their way and I find a soulmate in nobility,_ Jack thinks sourly. But what are the chances, five out of five siblings finding their other halves all in nobility? All within the same star system? And all the opposite gender, to ensure the continuation of bloodlines? Jack shakes his head. No, he's not that lucky.

Mark frowns at the new information, not paying attention to the people around him. Jack watches him as he thinks, his fingers tapping on the edge of the table and his brow bent over his nose in deep thought.

"Is something wrong?" Malcolm asks, wary. Jack's oldest brother has never been one for magic, not even when he was younger. He's the strongest of all of them, the bravest, the only one to be knighted in the family. He's got several accomplishments that Jack, or any of his siblings, could never aspire to beat. But he does not have anything to do with magic if he can help it.

Mark looks up, surprised at the interruption. "Oh, no, not at all. I'm just..." He laughs a little. "I'm unused to being stumped."

"Maybe Sean would be willing to have you study him, to clear this all up," Megan says quickly, with a broad smile. "Better safe than sorry, don't you think?"

Jack scowls at her, but before he can decline his mother is saying sharply, "That's quite enough, Megan. Sean will do no such thing." He glares at her. There she goes again, making his decisions for him, paving over his words like so much dirt. And that... Well, that gets his back up like nothing else, and Jack finds himself immediately eager to do the exact opposite of what his mother wants.

"Actually," he says pensively, and Julianna looks across the table at him with venom in her expression, "I'd be glad to play guinea pig. After all, I'm pretty curious about what happened." He says it casually, as if discussing what he did the day before, but over their meals Jack's eyes challenge his mother to take away his right to choose.

Bitterly his mother's mouth twists in displeasure, but she says nothing. Jack turns from her to smile at Mark, who looks equal parts taken aback and tentative at the power struggle before him. "I don't want to step on any toes," Mark says, all hesitation. His gaze flicks between Jack, his mother, his grandmother, and Jack's sisters who are tittering at the end of the table with their heads together. "If it's too much hassle I can just do without knowing, really, it's not--"

"Not to worry," Jack says easily, giving him a beatific smile. Mark's demeanour seems to ease somewhat at that, and Jack continues, "I don't mind, and I really am curious. Truly, I'd love to know why you knocked me out with magic dust." He makes sure to keep his tone light, teasing, his teeth bared in a grin.

Mark picks up on his humour, and smiles minutely. "Of course, Your Highness."

Jack frowns at the title, but seeing how his mother seethes at his grandmother's left hand, he doesn't try to correct Mark to a more casual name. He's won a small battle against her, and he knows she's spoiling already from their earlier fight. Doing much more would probably result in him being put under house arrest just like Seamus.

Idle conversation takes up what's left of supper, mostly fuelled by Jack's father and Hannah. The rest of his family is silent in observation or attitude, or both. Jack himself is quiet, sometimes adding a comment here or there, but for the most part he's happy to watch and listen to Mark talk about himself.

He grew up on Earth in Cincinnati, Ohio but was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii. From the few stories he shares Jack gathers that he had lots of friends growing up, and he suspects without being told that Mark was the natural pack leader of his friends. Whether that was due to his obscene amount of magical power or charisma (or both), Jack can only guess. He breezed through school, magical and ordinary, and managed to develop quite the reputation for himself while attending the Institute of Arcane Arts in New York after high school. 

His father died when Mark was a teenager, an airlock accident during a routine shuttle to the lunar military base that he worked out of. The way Mark speaks of him, with a gentle smile on his lips and a light in his eyes, illustrates just how much he loved his father. His mother, before her death during Mark's years in the Institute, worked off-planet mostly, travelling as a translator for a small company in charge of diplomatic conflict resolution between Terrans and extra-terrestrials. Sometime after his mother's death, his older brother Thomas immigrated from Earth to Glisa, Jack's home planet, to work as a scribe for a nobleman in Crescentia. Left alone and to his own devices in a world suddenly too big, Mark made do until the opportunity arose for a new start, and he snatched up the chance to be closer to his last remaining family member.

"And then I came here, through the good will of President Muyskern," Mark says, dessert spoon fiddling in his empty ice cream dish. "It makes me a bit guilty, if I'm honest. Many more people than me applied for the job, but I was basically given seniority because of my connection to the president."

"I doubt that's it," Jack tells him. "Gran approves every trade personally, and she wouldn't have let you come unless you were more than just borderline qualified." At Mark's slightly shocked look, Jack grins. "Gran is a stickler for perfection in all forms."

"Must you flirt when I'm within earshot?" Seamus grunts beside him as Mark's ears go red. "It's bad enough that I have to dine with you."

Jack glowers. "I'm not flirting." Seamus snorts derisively. "You--"

"Oh, be quiet," his mother sighs harshly, getting to her feet. Hastily Mark follows suit, clambering from his chair. Julianna studies him for a long moment before saying, "Thank you for joining us, Mark. It was a pleasure." Her tone of voice could be mistaken for a plank of wood, for all its feeling.

"Likewise, Your Highness," Mark says, dipping his head in a quick bow. Jack gets up when it's clear that the meal is drawing to an end, pushing his chair back in as his siblings and father do the same. His grandmother remains seated. "Thank you again. I'll... um, I'll be on my way."

Waving a hand impatiently in dismissal, Julianna turns away and exits the dining room through the doors into her living quarters. With a kind parting smile at Mark, Jack's father follows her. The door shuts behind them with finality, shaking Jack from his stiff posture as he stands behind his chair. He turns as Mark scurries from the dining room and through the now-open doors into the sitting room where they came from. Quickly he follows, shrugging off his sisters' knowing stares as he catches up.

"Mark," he calls as the Terran makes his way into the hall, and the attendants at the doors hold them open as Jack hastens to Mark's side. He pauses when Jack comes up to him, looking curious. "I was thinking you might need a guide back to your quarters. And, I'd like to use you as an excuse to escape my family, if you don't mind my company."

Shocked, but then smirking at his bluntness, Mark nods and says, "At least you're honest about it." He hesitates, looking down and then away before meeting Jack's expectant gaze. "I'd also like to not get lost, so... thank you for offering to walk me back, Your Highness."

Jack cringes with distaste then forces himself to smile. "I know my mother likely ingrained a very healthy fear in you, but I really do prefer to just be called Jack." They begin walking, Jack guiding them to the servants' quarters.

"I couldn't help but notice that you seem to have two names," Mark says after a few moments. "Do you go by your middle name usually?"

"Nah," Jack says breezily. "Jack is a nickname, but Sean is my actual name. I go by either, but it seems like my parents and grandmother seem to like calling me Sean specifically when they're cross with me." He sighs softly, a weary sound, but then Jack smiles. "My grandfather, when I was a kid, he used to regale me with Jack and the Beanstalk, that Earth fairytale about giants and magic beans. As a boy I loved the story--I was a nut for stories and lore, not to mention magic--and I would have my grandparents read it to me at bed almost every night. After a while my grandfather teasingly called me Jackaboy, an altered name after the main character, then that evolved back into Jack, and it stuck after a while." 

Mark nods, humming a noise of understanding. "Then, Jack it is." He offers a tentative smile and Jack beams at him. "Though, I hope you'll forgive me if I call you Your Highness around your family, and Jack when we're alone." Mark flushes, then hurries to add, "Not that we'll be--I meant, when they're not around. I don't mean to... to presume--"

"Presume away," Jack chuckles, somewhat enchanted by Mark's fluster at the simple slip-up. "Doesn't bother me. Your lack of tact is actually very refreshing, compared to the stuffed-shirt idiots who revel in the idea of sucking up to royalty."

"I'd guess you get a fair bit of those," Mark hedges, following as Jack takes a left turn into the receiving hall. The space is full of servants, coming and going in the midst of various chores and errands. "Er, stuffed-shirt idiots, that is."

"Too many," Jack agrees with a sigh. "They flock like nattering birds and converge on the nearest royal who's unaware." He weaves through the servants' paths, careful not to bump into anyone. "A bit like vultures on a corpse."

A snort comes from behind him and when Jack glances over his shoulder Mark's face looks stunned, a hand at his mouth. Jack just laughs. "I don't think I've ever heard royalty refer to themselves as a corpse before," the Terran says at length, but not without amusement.

"Just think what'll come out of my mouth once you know me better," Jack muses. He moves into the hallway that leads to the servants' section of the palace. "Well, I may as well leave you here. I think you'll know the way after this."

"Yes, thank you," Mark says at his side. But he lingers, silent.

Jack gives him a wry smile. "Spill. What is it?"

With a small huff of air Mark looks at him, one corner of his mouth lifted. "You wouldn't want to subject yourself to my... we'll call it testing, sometime tomorrow, would you?" He looks warily hopeful, like he's not even sure if he wants what he's asking for.

Jack lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug and says, "Yeah, sounds good." He grimaces, adding in a grunt, "Anything to get away from the suitors my Gran is throwing at me."

"Suitors?" Mark queries, one eyebrow up. 

"I am apparently too old to be without a significant other," Jack informs him bitterly, arms folded across his chest. "And my grandmother has taken it upon herself to invite every eligible young maiden and lordling in the star system here to test for my soulmate compatibility."

"And you're not happy about this," Mark surmises, studying him.

"It's a means to an end," Jack sighs. "And not an end that I consented to." At Mark's curious look, Jack elaborates, "Once I'm Branded and married off to this person of noble blood, I then will be forced to train under my parents and grandmother for the regency, despite me turning the air blue trying to convince them that I want nothing less."

Now Mark is alarmed. "What? How can they do that?"

Jack looks away, across the hall to where servants clamour about with tasks and chores. "Because it is my birthright to be controlled, until there's nothing left of me but mindless servitude." He glances back to Mark, who looks dismayed and mildly outraged. "Don't worry. We'll still have plenty of time to uncover the mystery of my... allergy." 

"I appreciate that, Your Highness," Mark assures him quickly, "but--"

"No buts," Jack says softly, cutting him off. He covers a sigh, instead stepping back and turning to the doorway leading back towards his own quarters. "I'll come to you tomorrow after my... responsibilities have been tended to. Goodnight, Mark."

"Goodnight, Your Highness," comes as a whisper from behind him.

Rather than find Felix Jack hastens back to his rooms for the evening, where a guard is already posted at the door. He doesn't spare the guard even a passing look, instead shutting himself inside his room and leaning back against the door. 

His personal hell begins tomorrow, and Jack would avoid sleep for the rest of his life if it would delay the trials that stand before him. _But no such magic exists,_ Jack thinks wryly, bitterly, as he undresses and gets into bed. He has no choice but to go forward with what he's been given. His life just doesn't belong to him anymore, and he can't do anything about it.

 

 _Twenty-four,_ Jack counts blankly in his head as a young man approaches, bows at the waist and greets him as Prince Sean. He introduces himself and then leans to kiss Jack's knuckles. No Brand, no heat or searing pain. The man moves to the side with a disappointed look, and Jack turns to look dully out the window to the setting sun before his next assailant appears before him.

Jack, under the watchful gazes of his parents and grandmother, allows suitor after suitor--female and male alike--to approach him, greet him politely, kiss his hand and then move on when there's no sign of Branding. If he had his way, he'd be shaking hands and not letting a long line of people kiss his knuckles one after the other. Though, if he really had his way, he wouldn't be here at all.

Thirty-nine people. He meets, greets, touches and endures thirty-nine people and Jack has no soulmate to speak of, nor any recollection of any of their faces or appearances. _None of you position-grabbing whores caught a prince today,_ he thinks nastily, eyeing the group of young men and women standing at the end of the room, staring at him. He stands when no suitors remain before him and leaves the small ballroom before his grandmother or mother can prevent his departure. He's more than dealt with their malarkey enough for one day.

Felix is waiting in his quarters, fiddling with the drumsticks that he hides under his bed, that he's technically not supposed to have. They encourage unprincely hobbies, his mother informed him when she took his last pair. Like music and happy things. The young lord sits up on the bed and smiles when Jack enters.

"You look rather soulmate-less," Felix comments as Jack flops face first into his bed beside him. 

Jack turns his face to the side to say grumpily, "Yes, well, by the look on my mother and grandmother's faces before I left, I am far from home free." Then he puts his face back into the blanket beneath him, hoping it will suffocate him.

"The court mage came to find me today, to ask if I'd seen you," Felix says nonchalant somewhere to his right.

Rocketing to his feet, Jack squeaks, "Shit! I forgot I was supposed to meet Mark! What time is it?" He rushes to his closet to change out of his stuffy impress-your-potential-spouse clothes for something more casual.

Before Jack can work himself into a frenzy, Felix soothes, "Chill, alright? I worked it out, explained where you were. Though, he already knew you were likely caught up with princely garbage. Anyway, he's waiting in his room whenever you're ready."

Jack sighs, peeling off his silk button-up and pulling a simple white long-sleeve shirt over his head, cotton blend and far too "commoner" to be seen outside of his room in. He doesn't care today, his patience for his mother and grandmother's wants are nonexistent. Jack pulls on one of his pairs of ridiculously expensive jeans, dark wash and actually very comfortable, and switches his polished dress shoes for a pair of blue sneakers. "Stars, I did not expect to be tangled up with those people for most of the afternoon. I hate this, and it hasn't even begun."

"Pretty much expected, though," Felix says. "This was never going to be fun."

With a snort, Jack bends to tie his shoes and erects again. "Understatement of the millennia, there." He preens for a moment in his large mirror, toying with his hair and tugging his clothes into proper placement. Felix studies him intently, a peculiar look on his face. Jack sees it. "What?"

Felix shakes his head, smirking. "You look like you're about to go on a date, the way you're fussing."

He colours, hands freezing. "Shut up," Jack grouses, throwing a shoe at him. "I just want to... you know, look nice. He's the court mage, and I'm a prince. It's..."

"Appropriate?" Felix taunts, and Jack grimaces. "Come on, dude. You're legitimately pre-date preening." He pauses, assessing Jack with his eyes. "You like him, don't you?"

"Oh, be quiet," Jack grunts. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. For one, I barely know the man. Two, his magic burned me. I'm hardly turned on by that. And thirdly, he's... it's just... I just don't like him, okay?" Even to his ears, that's a pretty weak argument and by the look on Felix's face, he knows it.

Felix stands, setting the drumsticks under his bed before drifting to the door. "Sure," he says, disbelief plain in his voice. "Just be safe, you young stud," he teases, and Jack throws another shoe at him as he disappears behind the door, laughing.

Sighing, Jack drops onto his bed. He doesn't like Mark, does he? He does find the man likeable enough, and Jack empathizes with him and the way people see his talents first before they see him as a person. He's pretty easygoing, and he doesn't seem to mind Jack being royalty that much. Sure, he's nervous around Jack's family, but when he walked Mark to his room last night he treated Jack... well, almost normal. Jack nearly forgot what that felt like from someone who isn't family, or Felix.

_No, Felix is just being an ass,_ Jack decides. He doesn't like Mark. He appears to be a good man, and it looks like he and Jack get along well, but that's it. He tells himself that all the way to Mark's rooms in the servants' wing of the palace, almost like a mantra.

He's waylaid a few minutes by having to ask a passing servant where Mark's room is, but he finds it without trouble. It's a few moments after he knocks before Mark opens the door dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, his face crestfallen. But when he sees Jack, his visage brightens. "Goodness," Jack says, smiling, "I wonder what could've put that look on your face just now."

"Hello, Your Highness," Mark murmurs, looking down even as he returns a smile. "I was just hoping it wouldn't be someone else. I've been waiting for most of the day. I wasn't sure if you would make it."

Jack sighs, easing inside the room when Mark steps aside to admit him. The quarters are small, far too small for a court mage, Jack notes with a hint of frustration at his family. It's a glorified broom closet, just a bed and a trunk at the foot of it, and one chest of drawers with a small matching nightstand at the head of the bed. "Yes," he says apologetically, "I'm sorry about that. My mother and grandmother had me occupied most of the day, actually, and I only just escaped them minutes ago."

"You didn't have to come, if your day has been long enough," Mark says hurriedly, shutting the door. "This isn't... well, it's mostly just for my own peace of mind, really. I hate knowing I might have hurt someone, especially you, Your Highness."

Jack smirks, sitting on the edge of the bed. "The world is locked away from us, Mark, so that'll be Jack if you don't mind. And I'm already here, it hardly makes sense to leave now, long day or not."

Mark smiles to himself, then says softly, "Right, of course... Jack."

Something effervescent pinwheels through Jack's chest at the sound of his name on Mark's lips, something alien and new. He presses a hand to his chest, confusion gripping him. _What in the stars...?_

"Is something the matter?" Mark asks him, studying his face.

Jack shakes the feeling off and smiles. "No, nothing. Let's carry on."

Mark nods, then says with a sheepish look, "Well, there's really nothing you need to do. I just have to basically let my magic do all the work. It'll confirm or deny whether there's anything anatomically to blame for what happened."

"In short," Jack surmises, "it'll explain whether or not an allergy to magic is a real thing."

"Essentially," Mark replies. "You can do whatever, walk around or sit or stand. You don't need to be still, just in this room."

Jack nods, standing. As Mark rubs his hands together and kneels to open the trunk, he watches him. Mark, after some digging around, closes the lid again and gets to his feet with a cloth bag in his hand. When he sets it on the dresser--a surface bare of personal effects save for a single family photo and several piles of books--it rattles as if full of small rocks.

"What's that?" Jack asks him, and Mark turns to face him. "That bag, what's in it?"

Mark glances down as he tugs open the draw-string mouth of the bag. "They're called Ardensan Stones. They make my magic easier to contort for the more complex spells." He extracts one such stone and shows it to Jack, but when the prince reaches out Mark adds, "Look but don't touch. They're attuned to me, so I don't know what could happen if you touch them, considering the reason you're here and all."

"What are they made of?" Jack wonders as he leans forward to peer at the small sparkling stone in his palm. It looks to him as if it's cut from raw diamond, dyed a starlight pink and polished to a sphere.

"Each magician cuts his or her own Ardensan Stones, or else they don't work," Mark explains, withdrawing his hand to dip into the bag and pull out four more stones, all of various sizes and colours but all round or oval in shape. "And each Stone is made a different way, from different things, for different purposes. This one," he says, proferring the pink one again, "is made from a dying star."

Jack looks at him, alarmed. "And how does one come to pluck matter from a dying star?"

Mark grins, setting the bag down and rolling his five selected stones in his hands. "Why, magic, of course," he says with a chuckle. Jack gives him a dull look and he tacks on, "Well, mostly magic. This was only my second Stone, so it really ought to have been easier to make. But," here he sighs, looking amused, "a younger me wouldn't dare take an easy route when a more challenging one presented itself. It was star matter or nothing. So my mentor taught me how to walk on stars."

"Walk... on stars," Jack repeats, dumbfounded.

"Not as hard as it sounds," Mark says conversationally. "I got it on the first try, actually."

"You've walked on a dying star," Jack says again, and now Mark seems a little worried as he looks at Jack. "You've... By the moons, Mark, that is incredible!"

The mage ducks his head, grinning. "Well, you didn't know me when I was younger. I was something of a know-it-all, had to be the best of the best."

"I dare say you've achieved that," Jack says with a small laugh. He makes an all-encompassing gesture to himself, settling onto Mark's bed lazily. "Do your magicky stuff, then. Do you mind if I snoop at your books?" 

When Jack points to the stack of books on Mark's bedside table, the magician nods. "Go for it," he permits easily. "This could take a little while, so you may want to have something to do after all."

Jack takes the topmost book and reads the cover, _Fractal Spells and How to Avoid Them_ , and flips it open to the first few pages. He reads several lines then looks up to ask Mark what a fractal spell is, but he stops with his mouth hanging open. Mark is standing in the centre of the room, his palms facing up with his five Ardensan Stones held in them. His expression is one of severe determination and focus, with a low brow and slightly contorted mouth... but Jack is more captivated by the complete blackness of his eyes. His irises, even the sclera are turned an opaque, consuming black. As Jack watches his eyes flicker, mere flashes of what appear to be random shades of colour, and as they do the stones in Mark's hands slowly come to life with bursts of light. 

The longer Jack watches, the book forgotten in his hands, the more he sees. Mark's eyes don't just flicker--they also bloom with growing and receding swatches of colours, mixing and spreading and then segregating again over the surface of his eyes. The spheres in his hands are like a small pyrotechnic show, and it takes Jack several minutes to realize that the stuttering colours are in the same pattern as the ones that show in Mark's eyes. 

"You're making me nervous," Mark says quietly, his lips barely moving. Startled, Jack smothers his noise of surprise, but can't stop himself from jumping. Mark's lip quirks a little before returning to a concentrated frown.

"Sorry," Jack murmurs, but he's still staring. "I've just... I've never seen anybody's eyes do that when they cast magic. Yours didn't do that the other day when you glow-dusted everyone."

"My eyes only do this when I'm using a lot of power," Mark explains, turning briefly to look at him. With those swirling, oily eyes on him Jack feels arrested where he sits. "Or when I want them to."

"I don't think I'm ever going to get used to you," Jack says, awed, and Mark surprises him by laughing.

"Don't be so sure," Mark retorts, smiling. He blinks once, twice, and the third time his eyes clear to their regular white and brown. He moves to the dresser and deposits the stones in his hands back into the cloth bag holding the other stones and draws the string closed. He then joins Jack on the bed, sitting at the foot and leaving plenty of space between them. "And from what I can tell, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you, magically speaking."

Jack snorts. Even as he looks away, he feels the need subtly claw at him to look back at Mark's eyes. "My brother Seamus would insist that, non-magically, there are several things wrong with me."

"Your brother strikes me as a... characteristic sort of person," Mark says hesitantly, but with some humour.

"Go ahead, you can say it," Jack coaxes, grinning. "My brother is royalty, but he's royally idiotic too."

"That's the sort of thing that gets a guy hung by his toes in a courtyard for the weekend, if the royal family hears it," Mark chuckles.

"I'm fake royalty, I don't count," Jack rebukes. "I'd be a merchant, or a tradesman or anything of the sort if it would be allowed. It would get me some goddamn independence from this place."

"Have you ever run away?" Mark asks, but the way he asks it without much inflection suggests he already suspects the answer.

Jack offers him a smile, reclining into the pillows behind him with a sigh. "Plenty of times, when I was a teenager and bitter about my status. Not that I'm much less bitter now." He glances at Mark from staring at the ceiling, and he's looking back with a soft expression. "Each time, my grandmother or grandfather hauled me back by the ear before I could even make it out of the city. After about ten attempts, I knew I wasn't going anywhere." His words end almost in a whisper, so hushed and tentative.

Mark is quiet and Jack doesn't break the silence. "After my dad died," Mark says after a moment, dropping back onto the bed sideways, "I got a little wild. Started doing ridiculously dangerous spells and experiments, to the point where my mentor threatened to call the Council on me if I didn't calm down. I did slow down with my magic, but I was still out of control. My mom never knew, she was away too often to notice when I was and wasn't home." Mark turns to look at Jack, but his mind is far away. "Tom, though, he knew exactly what I was doing. He called me on my shit one day, and we argued. It was bad." Mark shakes his head, a small frown on his lips. "It almost came to blows. I used magic on him for the first time, to prevent him from attacking me when I provoked him too far, and right then I knew I had to reevaluate where I was taking myself."

"You said your brother is here, as a scribe," Jack recalls, staring up at the blank ceiling.

"He is," Mark replies. "For Lord Rowan, the man whose son I used to tutor on Earth. Lord Rowan's wife is something of a poet, but she's from a drifter colony originally and her English is pretty broken, so Tom helps her use the proper words. In return they help Tom with furthering his work and publishing it reputably through Lord Rowan's business."

"Rowan is a good man," Jack says with a smile. "He's one of my favourite courtiers. Always so good to everyone equally. He doesn't see tiers of statuses filled with people, he just sees people."

Mark nods but doesn't say anything, and quiet falls on them again. Jack sits in it with ease, his mind's eye keeping him occupied with endless images of Mark's abyssal eyes. His own eyes close, and daydreams come to life behind his eyelids. Mark, standing tall on some precipice, wind whipping his clothes about his body and his hands to the dark, stormy sky. Lightning runs the length of his arms, sparking off his fingertips madly into the open air where it forks and spreads before dissipating. His eyes are onyx and glistening with power, blinking intermittently with blue and white flashes, and his mouth is grinning wide with laughter.

"I couldn't help but notice," Mark says idly, snapping Jack away from his daydream, "when I was searching for any issues, that you... well, you have magic in you. But I remember Her Majesty saying she had you tested when you were young and you showed nothing."

Jack's eyebrows hike up his forehead. "There's got to be some mistake," Jack says with a wry smile. "I don't have any magic. I haven't done a single magical thing in my entire life, and I've wanted to set my brothers and sisters on fire more than once."

Mark chuckles, murmuring, "It's not unheard of for magic to develop at a later age, though it's incredibly rare."

"I'm not the least bit magical," Jack tells him, sitting up so he can look properly at Mark. "Honestly. You're probably just so powerful that your magic was everywhere and it seemed like I have my own magic."

"No, it's there," Mark says, amused, and sits up too. "Right there." He points to Jack's chest, right at his heart. "Though, I've never seen magic situated at the heart before. Usually it's the gut or chest, the hands or head maybe, sometimes the lungs. Never the heart."

"Which convinces me even more that you're mistaken," Jack insists faintly, but he can't ignore the response he felt behind his heart at Mark's simple gesture, as if some energy there was reaching out to the touch. "It's... it's impossible, I can't--"

"Jack," Mark soothes. "Relax. It happens, okay? You can get lessons, and learn to control it--"

"No," Jack says sharply, cutting him off. "I don't have magic, I can't. If I had magic it would've shown itself in some way by now."

"It might have," Mark agrees, "but your magic is very subdued. I almost wasn't sure it was there. If I didn't know any better I'd think you were siphoning from someone, but there's no one here to siphon from but me, and I'd hardly let you."

Jack makes an irritated noise in his throat. "Mark, you're not listening to me, I--" Abruptly he cuts off, because Mark has a hand in front of him, palm towards Jack, and he's muttering under his breath. Something... wispy and light pulls from behind Jack's heart, shoving forward through him as if to burst from his chest and merge with Mark's hand. He gasps hard at the sensation, pressing a hand over his heart as if that'll contain it, eyes wide with alarm as he stares back at Mark. "What did you do to me?" The words are strangled, uneasy and full of tension.

Quickly Mark lowers his hand to his lap, and the feeling subsides slowly. "Nothing," he rushes out, "I just called to the magic in you. And you felt it, didn't you? It responded."

Blankly Jack stares at the wall. "There's magic in me," he whispers. Then he turns to Mark, who looks more than a little concerned. "How...?"

"I don't know," Mark tells him honestly, looking wary. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know," Jack retorts harshly, and Mark smiles. "Stop that smiling, you... you..."

"You dashingly handsome young man?" Mark offers. "You incredibly talented mage? You wonderful addition to the Crescentia Royal Court?"

Against his own bad mood, Jack finds himself chuckling. He studies Mark and the way his easygoing smile seems to brighten the whole room. Is it magic, or something else? Jack's smile falters as he considers his options. Telling his family is absolutely not happening, and he can't exactly find outside help on his own without one of them finding out. "Will you help me?" Jack asks quietly, his hand rubbing anxiously over his heart. "I can't tell my family. I can't."

"Whatever you need, I'm here," Mark assures him, sitting a little straighter.

"I need to hide it, from everyone," Jack hurries, panicked. "I need to learn how to control it and hide it."

"I can do that," Mark says easily, and something from his calm demeanour bleeds into Jack and lightens the sudden and paramount weight on his shoulders. "First, hold out your hand. I want to verify something."

Without pausing to question him, Jack does what he asks and holds out his hand. Mark holds out his own hand, palm out in pacification, and murmurs, "This won't hurt, but it may tingle like before." Then he cups his hands in the air around Jack's, his dark brow twisted in concentration. Jack looks on as his full lips mutter an incantation breathily, the words unrecognizable and barely making sound in the fragile quiet of the room. When the last syllable cuts off, Mark's hands flare to life with a vibrant light like they're suddenly made of molten metal. But no heat transmits from them, not that Jack can feel. He does, however, feel a cautious pulling at his skin, as if he'd gone almost completely numb and someone was poking him. Mark's fingers haven't touched him though.

"What are you doing?" Jack slurs, his tongue oddly heavy. His eyes close languidly and he forces them to open again. Blackness edges at his vision, coaxing him into slumber.

Mark looks up at him sharply, his hands dulling to simple flesh once more. "Do you feel drunk, woozy?" he asks Jack, ignoring the question.

"Yes," he murmurs drowsily. "And sleepy. What did you do?" Jack asks him again, a little more urgent.

"I confirmed the last possibility of our first problem," Mark says, somewhat dryly. He holds out a hand palm-up and blows across it. 

A cloud of white smoke materializes from his hand in a small burst of air and gusts directly into Jack's face. The sensation is cold, abrupt and refreshing, and it shakes Jack out of his stupor in a heartbeat. "I'll admit I'm feeling a lot like a puppet," he mutters as the smoke dissipates, taking with it the significant coolness. 

"I'm sorry," Mark says, and he sounds like it. "It was necessary. I found out what the issue is, because of that."

"Well, what is it?" Jack asks impatiently.

Mark smirks lopsidedly, a unique facial quirk that makes something move in Jack's chest. "Your magic doesn't hate mine, or else it would protect you whenever I tried casting on or at you. And we know you're not allergic to it, because you have your own magic. Which leaves," Mark sighs, "the now-obvious conclusion that my magic is basically in love with you."

Jack stares. "Run that by me again?" he asks weakly.

To his relief Mark laughs quietly. "It sounds stupid, I know. But it just means that my essence, the part of me that's all magic..." Mark rubs idly in the middle of his chest, right between his collarbones, his fingertips pressing into the light material of his shirt. "It's... attached to you on a spiritual level, and your magic will likely respond to me in the same way. It resonates with your soul, which is what my essence is made of. Or, rather, souls are made of essence." He frowns. "Is this making any kind of sense?"

_Souls,_ Jack thinks, his mind racing. _It can't be..._ "No, not at all, but let me see if I can pretend I understand," Jack says, and shifts his shoulders uneasily. "Your magic, which is attached to your soul and made of your soul, likes me, and my magic therefore probably also likes you and that's why I went red as a lobster and pseudo-burned when your magic touched me?"

"Yes, exactly," Mark replies, pleased. "It's all just souls and magic finding best friends."

"Or soulmates," Jack says, because the second Mark involved souls in the discussion Jack knew his chances of this being an easy solution were too slim. Mark glances up at him quickly, eyes wide, and Jack holds out his hand, almost desperate for the feel of Mark's skin. "We've never touched," Jack murmurs, his fingers wiggling in the space between them. "Not even once."

"It's--That's--because its not appropriate," Mark stammers, suddenly on his feet and backing away. "This isn't--that, it's just souls bonding through magic."

"Can you tell me with absolute one hundred percent certainty that that isn't what this is?" is Jack's hasty rebuttal. His heart, already clinging hard to the idea that he really has found his soulmate, aches at the look of complete horror on Mark's face. _Am I really such a bad prospect?_ "Can you promise me that if I touch you, we won't be Branded?"

"No," Mark whispers, leaning back against the door with a trembling hand on the knob. "I can't." He swallows visibly. "I think you should go, Your Highness."

Jack stares, taken completely by surprise. When he supposedly found his match, those weren't exactly the words he was expecting. "Come again?" Jack says, giving Mark an odd look.

Mark sighs hard through his nose, apparently calming himself. "It's... This--" he gestures between them with a nervous wave of his hand "--is not a good idea. I'm a target," he explains to Jack's dumbfounded expression. "I'm powerful, one of the most powerful mages born in known history. I can't have complications like--"

"Like a soulmate," Jack says somewhat numbly, getting to his feet. "And let me guess--one from royalty is even less desirable." He's trying very hard not to take it personally, but the one person in the universe that's made for him, made to be with him, is telling him he's not wanted. "Hell, I don't even want to be royalty. And my family doesn't paint a very joyous picture of the lifestyle, either."

"Jack, this doesn't reflect on you," Mark says softly. "It's an enormous risk, to be associated with me. I won't put anyone in that position."

"You idiot," Jack scoffs. Mark looks up in mild shock. "You think I'm not in danger already? I'm seventh in line to the throne of the largest trade capital in this star system. I'm sure there's at least three shady organizations that would like me in their hands for ransom alone, never mind the simple assassination attempts or crazies that like to stir the pot and get a name for themselves by making a dark headline in the news."

"That's different," Mark sighs. "This kingdom is mostly peaceful, with a good police force and military. You're easily protected here, especially with me being nearby. Jack, you can't..." He lifts his head to give Jack a determined look, underlaid with painful acceptance. "You can't ask me to yield on this."

"And you can't ask me to accept this," Jack retorts, scowling even as tears threaten. His one chance at happiness in his entire life, something he thought he'd never even get to have, and it's already slipping away. "You can't take this from both of us."

Mark gives him a despondent look. "I have to," he says softly. Then his face glazes over into passiveness. "You should go, Your Highness. It's better if we don't... associate anymore."

"Associate," Jack repeats, choking on the word. "Yes, stars forbid that I should associate with you." He rushes towards the door and Mark leaps out of his way, as if afraid Jack will come at him and initiate the Brand anyway. Stung, Jack hesitates as he stands on the threshold, facing out into the hallway. "You get your wish," he forces out, biting his lip. "I won't see you again."

"Jack," Mark says behind him, so quiet and pleading. "This is for the best, for both of us."

Shaking his head, Jack bites his lip to keep it from trembling. "No," he whispers. "This is your easy way out of something you don't want. And you're punishing us both for your fears." He closes his eyes on a wave of pain, then opens them again and takes the first impossible step.

His head high, Jack leaves Mark's room. His proud carriage only lasts until he knows Mark can't see him anymore, and then he slumps his way to his rooms where he collapses in his bed fully-clothed. As an afterthought he toes off his shoes, shoving them out of the bed with his feet.

His soulmate. He found them--him. In all the worlds, in all the galaxies... Mark was from Earth, which is not at all nearby, but he came all the way here following the last of his family. Was it pure chance that Tom was already employed at his brother's soulmate's city? Or was it the soulmate bond at work, pulling the two of them together one way or another?

_It doesn't matter anyway,_ Jack thinks sadly, rolling onto his side. Mark doesn't seem to care that Jack is soulfully his to claim. In fact, he literally ran in the other direction. His excuse of protecting Jack from whatever trouble he could attract, being the soulmate of one of the most powerful mages of their time? It's plausible, and noble if it's true. But he knows that Mark has other motives. Jack can't blame him--he wouldn't relish the idea of being Branded to royalty either. Mark of all people has seen the stress of the inside of the royal family. It's hardly paradise. Jack himself already doesn't want what it entails. He can't hold anything against Mark for probably wanting the same.

Felix shows up thirty minutes later, and he sits on the bed by Jack's hip. "Lady Priscilla just told me that she saw you galumphing your way through the palace as if your pet rock had died. From the servants' quarters."

"You'll get a kick out of this," Jack murmurs, rolling over to look at his best friend. He can trust Felix, and the mere idea that he's found his soulmate is enough to make Jack's teeth chatter with the need to tell someone. The man beside Jack knows him better than he probably knows himself. "He's my soulmate." At Felix's blank, shocked look, Jack elaborates dully, "Mark. The mage. He did his tests on me, and discovered that I have magic, and that our magics like each other. Like soul bonds, he said. And my mind made the conclusion between the burning feel of his magic to the whole soul bond thing." Jack looks up at his ceiling, painted like the elaborate ceilings of Earth's churches, and for the first time he wishes he was looking at white. "Mark... Well, Mark didn't exactly take to the idea."

"Stars, Jack," Felix exclaims, "you've found them, then? You've found your soulm--!"

"Hush, you dumbass," Jack snaps, sitting up sharply. "The last thing I need is to advertise that my soulmate doesn't want me. And this is hardly an acceptable match, in the eyes of my family. Not nobility, and a man. No, this needs to be kept quiet." He sighs, wiping a weary hand across his face. "All this time, all this waiting... and he doesn't even want me."

"Hey, c'mon, I bet it's just shock," Felix soothes, a hand at Jack's shoulder. "He knows what soulmates are to each other, just like the rest of us do. He'll come around."

Jack shakes his head. "If only you saw his face, Fe. Like his whole world had just been burned to the ground." Slowly Jack gets out of bed, walks aimlessly before wandering out onto the terrace through the double French doors. "I won't force him to accept me just so I can be Branded with the most unhappy partner between here and Solas. It's unfair to both of us." 

Felix frowns. "And what is fair? Being alone for the rest of your lives because one of you refuses to acknowledge that this is heaven you're being handed? Something that everyone we know would die to have?"

"Not everyone," Jack muses cynically. He stares out over the polished marble rail, down into the gardens where workers toil in the low, early evening sun and courtiers wander in the romantic backdrop of blooming and aromatic flowers. "It's better this way. I know who it is, at least, and I know that I met him. It's out of my hands whether he wants to brave the idea of being with me." 

"This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Felix grouches, joining him. "To... to refuse your soulmate! I wonder if it's because he considers himself straight?"

"Then bully for him, to have a male soulmate," Jack grumbles. "What a tragedy."

Felix sighs, resting a hand on Jack's shoulder. "It'll be alright," he says gently. "This will work out."

_Haven't you been paying attention?_ Jack wants to ask him. _Don't you know that this is my life, to be let down and disappointed by the people who are supposed to love me inherently and want me at my happiest?_

But he stays quiet, and lets the peace of the evening outside rest on his weary shoulders.

 

Two weeks later, Jack reclines in the chaise in his parents' parlour, a book propped open on his lap and his legs up on the cushion, crossed at the ankle. His feet are bare and his clothing is common, if expensive. He hasn't dressed regally, except when forced to for his courtship, since the last time he saw Mark. 

His mother looks on in full distaste. "Do you even make an attempt at being a prince anymore?" she asks him scathingly, moving to stand in his light. "Do you so wish to scorn this family?"

"Whatever I do to make myself happy makes this family uneasy, to say the least," Jack replies, not looking up. "And it's past the point of my opinion meaning anything. So what have I earned myself this time? Bed without supper? House arrest? More young men and women to parade through this place, to fawn over me in the hopes that their soul somehow manages to find the energy to give a shit about mine?" 

Taken aback by his cynical tirade, his mother falters, "You're not in trouble, Sean. I just meant that you ought to present yourself better." She shares a look with his father over Jack's head.

"I want nothing less," Jack says with muted, barely contained anger, "than to present myself to everyone else's satisfaction. I just want to be a person who's respected for who he is, and not what family he represents or what his belongings are worth." He sits up, replacing his feet onto the floor and setting his book aside. He looks up at his grandmother, standing near his father at the bar/makeshift desk, and adds, "I think everyone here knows how unhappy I am with the... arrangements made recently to my life." Wilhelmina turns her face away from him, an unusually sad expression on her face.

But his mother's face only hardens with temper. "Be that as it may, you will not shirk your duty to this family. You will go through with this courtship and you will find your soulmate, and then you will assume responsibility."

"Yes, what other choice would I have?" Jack snarls at her. "To do what I please, as a grown man? To find my soulmate on my own terms? To be happy with them, to feel the Brand and not with it feel a bottomless fear that my life is now over? Never mind that, should that soulmate be a common citizen or, help us all, a man unable to bear my children." He laughs meanly, getting to his feet. "You get your wish, Ma," he hisses at her. "I have nothing left to fight for. You have taken everything left that matters."

"Oh, don't be dramatic," she snaps, waving away his words and turning to stride across the room to her husband. "If you insist on having a temper tantrum then do it in the privacy of your chambers."

A bitter, rage-filled despair clutches at Jack's heart, sealing in whatever foul things he wants to say. He squares his jaw and approaches his grandmother and parents, bowing deeply once he reaches them and saying without inflection, "May the rest of your day be marvellous, Your Majesties." When his head lifts, his eyes are glassy with unshed, angry tears. Before they can respond he turns on his heel and leaves the room, shutting the door behind him with a click.

For a long moment Jack leans back against the wall outside his parents' rooms and lets the tears fall, head lowered and eyes shut tight. He gets ahold of his emotions quickly though, and shakes himself once to get rid of the horrible, familiar feeling of being trapped in his own life. It doesn't work, but he stops crying, at least.

But when he opens his eyes, he's not alone anymore. Jack startles as his gaze falls on Mark, standing in front of him looking like he's seen a ghost. His heart is trying to beat him to death through his ribs, but quickly Jack schools his expression into an indifferent one and he wipes his eyes.

Jack's heartbeat is throbbing in his neck as he stares at his soulmate. Instantly he hopes for the best, that Mark is here to say he's changed his mind, but he knows he's wrong before he even contemplates the possibilities of Mark's presence. "How good to see you again, Mr. Fischbach," he says numbly.

Mark winces slightly, his mouth pulling down at the corners. "Hello, Your Highness. Could... could we talk in private?" he queries, glancing up and then away.

It's one of the last things Jack wants to subject himself to, but telling Mark no--even when he wasn't given the same courtesy--isn't in his repertoire. "Very well." Jack turns on the balls of his feet and strides down the hall, paving the way to his rooms. He hears Mark following.

"Your Highness," Mark says after a few moments from behind him, sounding tentative, "I--"

"We're nearly there," Jack says, cutting him off. They exit into the main hall and he ascends the wide staircase, drawing curious stares from servant and noble alike due to his state of dress. Jack smiles as he passes his mother's close friend Lord Jericho, who gives him an up-and-down look of incredulity, but doesn't bother saying anything.

After Jack shuts his door behind Mark, he turns to the mage. "Let's hear it, then."

Mark stands awkwardly in the centre of the room, his hands clenching nervously, repeatedly at his sides. "I... I wanted to ask you about the change to my living quarters."

Smiling bitterly, Jack walks past him to the terrace where he leans his forearms on the railing overlooking the gardens. About four days after he last saw Mark, Jack made sure to convey to his family how inappropriate it was that the court mage, a man of such substantial power and standing even without being their court mage, was situated in a room no bigger than Jack's closet. It took a bit of convincing, but using his mother's own tactic against her--"the appearance of such disrespect would reflect poorly on the family"--got him his way.

"Even you knew how ridiculous your room was," Jack says, shrugging. He watches a young couple--he recognizes the woman as a locally born noble, Lady Augustine--meander hand-in-hand through the garden's hedge maze. They occasionally pause to smell the blooming climbing roses and morning glory that are grown on lattices peppering the maze, but their hands don't separate, not even once.

_So she's found her match, then,_ Jack thinks distractedly. He looks up from his people-watching when Mark joins him at the railing on his right. 

"That doesn't mean it's your responsibility to overcompensate," Mark says, and he sounds angry. His eyes burn into Jack. "The rooms-- _rooms!_ \--I have now are way too big, and not suited for my position any more than the one I had before."

Jack snorts in disbelief, looking back to the gardens. "You said yourself you're one of the most powerful mages out there. You don't think a princely room--as you serve royalty, no less--is within your reach?"

"That's not the point," Mark grunts, making a noise of frustration. "You can't do things like that. My rooms are right next to yours, and with what happened earlier this month people will talk--"

"Well, that won't matter," Jack cuts in snidely, "since we don't actually _associate_ \--" he spits the word "--anymore. What gossip is there for a romance when there isn't even a friendship?" 

"I need them changed," Mark insists, frowning. 

"Take it up with the queen," Jack snaps. "I have no power, other than to complain about a man's rights. And get out, while you're at it." He hunches his shoulders as he leans farther forward on the railing, staring straight down. 

Beside him Mark sighs. "I'm here for another reason, too," he murmurs. "Your magic, it needs addressing. You can't go around having that kind of power in you without knowing how to at least suppress it."

"And who's going to do that?" Jack asks waspishly. "You? Don't make me laugh."

"I'm more than qualified," Mark reminds him, amused.

Jack straightens, giving him a cold look. "You know that's not what I meant. Like I'm going to let you tutor me in secret when you won't even speak to me." At Mark's hunted look, Jack's mouth forms into a hard line, his expression becoming serious. "You don't get to tell me what to do, Mark. Enough people have that power over me."

"Jack, I'm not trying to control you," he says exasperatedly, urgently. "But this isn't something you play around with. Magic needs its leash, no exceptions."

Something small and pitifully hopeful runs through Jack's chest when Mark says his name, but it's hollow. _I'm dangerous if he doesn't teach me,_ he thinks despondently. _That's the only reason he's still here._ And the bond between them isn't making accepting that any easier. 

"That will be "Your Highness", Mark," he says, turning away to walk back into his room. Just getting the words out hurts, both his pride to act so... prince-like, and his heart to have to put that barrier back between them for his own sanity. But he needs to be able to survive this.

There's a chilling silence, then Mark says quietly, "Of course. My apologies, Your Highness." He follows him back inside at a much slower pace. "I would suggest we start as soon as possible to begin your training, Your Highness. It may be unnoticeable now, but over time you will become more tangled with your power, and the harder it will be to control."

Jack's shoulders sag under a sudden imposing weight, but he knows it's all emotional. "Yes, of course," he intones, resisting a weary sigh. "I'm... indisposed, for most of today. But tomorrow we can begin."

"Alright," Mark says. He's moving to the door, backing away from Jack. "I'll be ready after noon, if that's fine."

Watching him grow farther away, Jack feels the spot behind his heart--supposedly his essence--thump with an uneasy rhythm, almost like a second heartbeat. He presses a hand to his chest, but the touch does little to soothe the odd sensation. "Yes, that's fine," he says with some difficulty.

Mark gives him a final look, but there's nothing in his expression. Then he's shutting the door behind him and it's silent.

For a few hours he kills time on video games, but even that doesn't distract him. He's now going to be in enforced privacy with his reluctant soulmate, and they can't ever touch. But he somehow has to be taught magic without that ever happening. And before that, he gets to endure the now redundant process of finding his soulmate in some nobility or other while dressed like a human peacock.

_Great,_ Jack thinks mirthlessly. _Torture times two._

 

He wakes up early, too early, with a fire burning in his chest. Jack's eyes snap open from a light sleep when the heat starts to get feverish, smothering his ability to breathe easily. Immediately a hand is pressing there, over his heart, but it's a placebo effect only. It does little more than comfort him as the growing warmth spiderwebs out through his body.

He's on his feet quickly, staggering out of bed and across his room to the door. In the hall, it's dark and empty of sound and people. Jack keeps a hand on the wall, his palm dragging along the wainscotting and keeping him upright, and makes his way down the hallway. At the door that's supposed to be Mark's room, Jack stops and slumps against the doorjamb, knocking on the wood.

There's a small assortment of quiet noises from inside, and Jack sighs out a relieved breath. He wasn't sure if Mark had moved rooms yet or not. The door opens and Mark peers from inside the brightly lit room. The shadows that are cast along the walls inside flicker as if from open flames.

"What is it, Your Highness?" Mark asks him, sounding unimpressed to say the least.

"I can't breathe," he gasps out. "My chest is on fire. Help me." Jack groans when heat floods his body, making his knees buckle and he drops to the carpet.

"Christ, Jack," Mark says, shocked. He immediately bends to get on Jack's level as he sits up with effort. "What in the hell--? Did someone set a spell on you?"

"I don't know," Jack says breathily, "I didn't see anyone but you and my family yesterday. Stars, it burns--"

"Okay, alright," the mage says quickly. His face becomes impassive and yet worried. "I can't--I can't touch you. You have to get inside yourself."

"I'll crawl," growls Jack. He's irritated that Mark won't touch him, even to help him. _He really doesn't care about the bond at all,_ he thinks bleakly. Mark stands and opens the door wide, admitting the crawling prince. Inside, Jack looks up from staring at the floor and is met with a roaring pyre in the centre of the large room, two feet wide and spiralling all the way to the ceiling where it sputters from view. Despite the size of the blaze, Jack feels no additional heat from it. He looks all the way up and sees that it hasn't combusted anything or burned the ceiling or surrounding objects in the slightest.

Completely unsurprised that Mark is casting magic in the middle of the night, Jack slogs his way past the fire to the bed at the other end of the room where he clambers up the side and drops heavily into the duvet. At once the smell of Mark surrounds him, lingering in his nose as his chest heaves with the force of his breaths. Sweat dews on his face and he lay panting, his eyes half-lidded. He stares at a concerned, confused Mark across the room.

Making his way to the bed, Mark waves his hand and in an instant the fire flares once and then whooshes into a wisp of smoke that dissipates through the air. They're plunged into darkness without it, but then there's a snap of fingers and the bedside lamp comes bursting to life. 

"What were you doing?" Jack asks weakly, curious despite his condition. 

Mark bends over him, hands hovering above his body and fingers splayed wide. "I was speaking with the fire. It's a form of scrying, and precognition." His eyes gloss over into inky black pools as he focuses, the corners of his eyes crinkled.

"Like seeing the future?" Jack says, his own eyes shutting. "That's neat."

Mark chuckles softly. "It has its mysteries, though. 'Nothing is black and white when it comes to future sight.' My mentor told me that. It's a mantra of sorts, for seers."

Sighing softly as the heat within him begins to subside, albeit very slowly, Jack murmurs, "Are you a seer?"

"No," the mage replies. "Though technically I could be. I'm qualified and trained for every branch of magic. But I prefer to stay simple, at least right now." When Jack makes a small inquisitive noise, he adds, "I'm just poking around with the primary school--which is spell work involving the elements--and quite recently I started scrying. Trying to find some answers."

A cool, tingling sensation washes over Jack's body like a slow trickle of water. His eyes open once the feeling abates and Mark is stepping back from the bed, his hands stuffed into his pockets and his eyes a simple brown. "Thank you," Jack says, sitting up slowly. His head throbs dangerously, but not with headache. It's a peculiar feeling, almost as if he's exhausted. Jack supposes he has the heat to blame for that.

"Are you feeling okay?" Mark asks him. 

"Better now," is his reply. "It came out of nowhere. I was asleep, and it woke me up."

Mark looks thoughtful, seemingly lost in his own mind as it formulates an explanation. He glances back to the centre of the room, where the fire spiral had been. "I suppose my magic may have bled to you, since you're only feet away and our magics like one another, and transferred the heat from the fire to your magic pool." 

"Magic pool?" Jack repeats.

"Where your essence sits in your body," Mark elaborates. "Yours is behind your heart, remember? If someone or something affects your magic, that's where it'll start every single time. It's also called a mana pool."

"This magic business is really starting to irritate me," Jack muses with a sigh, getting to his feet. "Well, thank you for this. Have a good night." Hastening to the door Jack crosses the room. He gets it open but before he can make his getaway into the hall Mark is there, holding the edge of the door with a hand.

"I can't guarantee this won't happen again," Mark says, looking down at him, "but I'll do my best to monitor where my excess energies are going."

Jack nods without replying and hurries back to his room. In the safety of his bed, he tries to forget what it felt like to have the scent of Mark around him, comforting and real for just a handful of moments. _I'll never have it again,_ he realizes sadly. Haunted by the thought, he doesn't sleep one wink.

 

After escaping his courtship the next day--another twenty-six miserably rich souls looking to hook a prince--Jack makes his way to the rooms adjacent to his. His mother had some choice words for him about the dark circles under his eyes, but he glazed over her words with a glare and suggested that unless she herself was volunteering to tuck him in, then she could keep her opinion to herself. Needless to say Jack didn't have a happy time with her eyes stabbing daggers into his back as he greeted young noble after noble.

At Mark's door he hesitates for a long time, hand raised to knock. He has to do this, for his own safety and everyone else's. But it means putting himself through a turbulent emotional period with his untouchable soulmate. Jack doesn't consider himself selfish, but he doesn't exactly cherish the idea of torturing himself just to control his sudden magic.

Finally he raps his knuckles on the door, jumping slightly when it instantly opens wide. Mark is across the room, elbow-deep in his trunk at the foot of his bed. "Come in, Your Highness, I'm just gathering some things." Jack steps inside and the door swings shut again entirely on its own. He hears the lock snick into place behind him as he stares at Mark.

His heart seizes uncomfortably at the sight of the Terran. _Every time I see him it gets harder,_ Jack thinks pitifully as the ache there doesn't go away. But he smiles when Mark looks up and gets to his feet. He shuts the trunk and brings his items to the small round table that's placed in the centre of the room, beckoning Jack over with a hand.

Jack joins him, but keeps several feet between them. "Good afternoon," he mumbles, but he doesn't bother looking at Mark's face.

"Good afternoon, Your Highness," Mark replies easily. Jack can't contain his tiny flinch at the title, but he stays quiet. He asked for it, after all. "We're just starting with the basics today. I'm trusting you to do some theory reading about magic principles and the like on your own time, since I'm sure you'd enjoy it more without me hovering. I've got some books for you to borrow, but if you want your own copies I can order some from the Institute and have them sent here."

"I don't mind borrowing," Jack says quietly, eyes on his feet.

"Okay," Mark says. He gestures to the items on the table--a cube made of some kind of dark wood, a plastic pouch full of a whitish-purple powder, and two pairs of leather gloves. "These are what we'll be using the most as we go through the process of attuning you to your power."

Jack stares uncomprehending at the gloves. "What--?" But he stops himself before the question forms, because he does know what. One set for each of them, to prevent Branding in case they accidentally touch. "Oh," falls from his mouth softly, and he can't keep his pain out of the simple sound.

"They've been sealed magically, so we won't Brand at all as long as we're wearing them," the mage explains, sounding uneasy. 

Jack doesn't look up. "I understand. Let's just start," he mutters, snatching a pair and pulling them on. A strange frisson spreads up his arms and through his body, slowly covering his skin with energy and making him shiver. The feeling seeps through his chest and settles somewhat uncomfortably behind his heart. 

Mark takes his own gloves and tugs them on, then picks up the wooden cube and hands it to him. "Make it move," he tells the prince. 

A little scoff passes Jack's lips before he can stop it. "I'm assuming you don't mean to throw it?" he asks dryly.

"Just try," Mark chuckles. "Visualization is a big part of magic. Most of the time it's as simple as picturing what you want to do, along with a few words. This time you won't need any words." When Jack still looks dubious, he adds gently, "Please."

"Alright," sighs Jack. He eyes the cube in his gloved hands, then narrows his gaze as he focuses and wills the object to move. After a long moment of nothing happening, Jack scowls and looks up again. "I don't think I'm doing it right."

"Hmm," Mark hums thoughtfully. "Focus less, and feel more. Pull your conviction from here." He taps two fingers against Jack's chest, over his heart. A burst of heat blooms where he touches but Jack feels no pain, no burn, and he knows that they haven't Branded. 

_I guess the gloves work,_ he thinks disappointedly. He looks down again, ignoring the small huff of surprise Mark makes as he pulls his hand away, and his eyes find the cube in his hands. He focuses his attention on his mana pool, the place behind his heart that his magic sits. He feels an answering sensation, an odd swelling not unlike when he's incredibly happy. Once his chest is feeling almost too swollen with a nameless pressure, Jack exhales and hopes more than anything else for the cube to move. After a breathless moment the cube turns over in his stationary hands and onto the floor, where it continues to roll steadily until it hits the wall and is forced to stop.

"I did it," Jack whispers, gobsmacked. His eyes won't leave the little wooden cube. He feels a response in his chest from the spell, a small absence at his heart that feels strangely physical, as if something inside him had moved out of place. His legs shake beneath him with sudden exhaustion but he stays standing.

Mark smiles widely. "Wonderfully done, Your Highness. On your second try, and with enough gusto to make it to the wall. Very well done." He walks to the wall and picks up the cube, but it rolls out of his hands on its own and falls to the floor to continue rolling. He laughs, picking it up again and holding it firmly in his fingers. "Much more power than I expected."

"Is that good or bad?" Jack can't help but ask, wary. 

"It's great," Mark enthuses. "You'll be able to cast the more complex spells with ease, if this is any indication."

"But I just moved a block," the prince protests, "and a small one at that."

Mark gives him a big smile. "Your Highness, the first spell is always the most important. And yours," he pauses to open his hand that holds the cube and instantly it falls from his hand and onto the floor, rolling on towards the bed, "is a very interesting spell. You put enough into the spell that even after you released it, it kept going. That can take weeks to teach to a pupil."

"Well, it seems I'm making your job a bit too easy," Jack teases, smiling slightly. He looks down at his hands, gloved and safe from Branding, and wonders, _What kind of power do I have inside me?_

"Come on, try again," says Mark encouragingly. He walks to the bed and retrieves the block from underneath it, blowing on it once before handing it back to Jack. "This time try to make it float."

When the block drops into his hands, it remains still. Jack gives Mark a dubious look before frowning at the block and finding the spot inside him again. Once he feels the same pressure behind his ribs as before, he urges the block to lift off his hands.

The cube lay motionless. Just as Jack goes to sigh with disappointment, it shoots from his hands and rockets into the ceiling above them, narrowly missing both of their heads. It bounces harmlessly off the surface and back down to the carpet to his left where it doesn't move.

Jack turns to look sheepishly at Mark. "I didn't mean to do that," he rushes out.

To his surprise Mark laughs, stooping to pick up the block again. "This is amazing," he says, sounding far too gleeful for someone who almost got nailed with a piece of wood. "Your focus is incredible. You're a complete natural."

A small part of Jack flourishes when he hears that, knowing that he found something he's good at. But he feels his face heat with embarrassment at the praise, and he looks away. "I didn't even make it do what you wanted," Jack mumbles. "I just threw it at the ceiling."

"Jack, you did great," Mark insists, resting a hand on his arm. The contact is tingling and hot, and Jack wants it to last forever. Jack doesn't admonish him on his slip-up, and Mark himself doesn't even seem to have noticed that he used Jack's name. "You're doing a fantastic job, so don't worry, alright? This is only the beginning, and it looks as if you have nowhere to go but up."

_I wish that comforted me,_ Jack thinks sadly. He steps away from Mark's touch, unable to bear the hopeful heat any longer, and listens as he explains Jack's next task.

Mark has Jack casting magic for most of the afternoon, mostly doing various manipulative things to the wooden cube. Jack discovers that using his hands to direct where he wants the cube to be is much more helpful than just visualizing alone. When he seems to get the hang of that, Mark sets the block aside and picks up the pouch with the shimmery purple powder. It's used, Jack is told, to "see" magic, or at least the waves of energy that magic casts. The powder itself is magnetized to exposed magic, apparently, which makes it perfect for seeing exactly what a spell is doing. 

Mark demonstrates with a pinch of powder thrown into the air around him, and Jack is amazed when the powder hangs motionless around the mage. His arms lifted, Mark conducts the powder with his hands--or more accurately his magic--in mesmerizing swirls and cascades, tumbling it this way and that like a tundra wind catching snowflakes. Jack watches the display until the powder amalgamates into a single pinch once more, and rests in Mark's palm.

"I won't be able to do that," Jack informs him, smiling wryly.

Mark gives him an answering smile. "No, not quite yet. But soon, I think. Here, it's more than just pretty. It will help you see what you're doing." With that, Mark tosses the handful of dust on him and instinctively Jack holds up his hands to deter a blow. The powder pauses in its path, held there by something. Cautiously Jack moves his hands, spreading them out, and the powder follows through the air, spreading out and dispersing around him.

"Now I'm going to throw things at you," Mark says, backing up as he holds out an empty hand palm-up, "and you have to catch them." He casts no visible spell, but suddenly a plain yellow rubber ball sits in his hand, appeared from thin air.

"What?" Jack says, alarmed. But Mark is already throwing the ball, and Jack lifts his hands up again to deflect it. The powder moves quickly, swirling fast to congregate in front of him and instead of bouncing off his hands the ball stops, suspended a few inches in front of Jack's hands in a thick cloud of dust.

Whooping loudly, Mark bounces on the balls of his feet, another summoned ball in hand. He hurls this one hard, and Jack shrieks in surprise and shoves his hands out. The powder cloud, instead of catching it, sends the ball back at Mark at full speed. The mage ducks last-second and it whizzes over his head. Mark's magic must catch it behind him, because it freezes in mid-air and drops to the floor.

Jack places a hand over his mouth, holding in laughter at the startled look on Mark's face. "I also didn't mean to do that."

"I don't believe you as much this time," Mark chuckles. It doesn't sound quite right. "Go ahead and collect the powder into your hand. You don't need it."

Doing as he's asked Jack coerces the powder into one spot--with some difficulty--and delicately puts it back into its pouch. He looks up when Mark comes up to him, his hands bare of their gloves. "What is it?"

"Give me your gloves, please," Mark says, and there's something odd in his voice.

"Why?" asks Jack. He backs up a step, but Mark matches it with a forward step of his own.

"Because I know why you suddenly have magic," Mark murmurs cryptically. He holds up a hand, and something pulls in Jack's chest, right at his mana pool. "Because it's mine."

Jack stares at him, uncomprehending. He presses a palm to his chest, over his heart. "How is it yours if I have it?"

"It has to be the bond," Mark says quietly, half to himself. "It must be siphoning through me to you, through the bond. It makes sense," he goes on, his face lighting up with cognition. "It does. That's why you took the heat from that spell, and that's why your pool is at your heart, because soulmate bonds go through the heart and nowhere else. If you were a true mage you'd have your own spot of power somewhere else. But as it is, you're just..."

"Borrowing," Jack says numbly. _I'm not a naturally talented mage,_ he thinks bitterly. _I'm just an unknowing thief._ "I'm just borrowing. And you want it back."

"It will be easier than letting you keep it," Mark says uneasily after a moment. "Then you don't have to learn how to control it."

"I already have," Jack tells him snappily. "But sure, tell me I haven't, when not an hour ago you couldn't praise me enough." He turns his back to Mark, folding his arms to keep himself from doing something stupid.

"Being talented is different than being in control," Mark sighs. "This isn't right, Jack. It's not rightfully yours, and you shouldn't guilt me for wanting it back."

"There are a lot of things you shouldn't have done, either," Jack mutters, "but you have." He closes his eyes. "So just do it. Take it back." _Take it back and sever this feeble connection, the only thing left between us,_ Jack thinks grumpily.

Another soft sighs comes from behind him. "I'm so sorry," Mark mumbles. 

Jack doesn't reply. A chilling wave of cold flows outwards from Jack's heart, making him gasp loudly and stagger until he leans on the wall. It slowly radiates out through his whole body, cooling his flesh as it goes. It reaches his fingertips, lastly settling on his palms, and then all at once it's gone in a blink.

He takes a moment to compose himself, to get over the sudden emptiness behind his heart. He reaches into himself without thinking, and there's nothing. No magic, no pressure, nothing. It's gone. Jack presses a hand over his eyes when he's consumed with the compulsion to cry.

"Jack, I'm so sorry," Mark says again, sounding pitiful. "I'm sorry, if there was a way--"

"Don't be ridiculous," Jack scoffs. "You wouldn't do it even if there was a way." He stands up, collecting his thoughts, and moves to the door. "You don't expect me to believe that you'd share even a fraction of yourself with me, if you could? When you've already been given that option and you spit on it." As an afterthought Jack pulls off his gloves, setting them on the table near the door. "No. I'm not an idiot, Mark."

Quickly Mark is there at the door, holding it shut with a hand firmly against the wood. "But I know what it's like to feel magic. I know what it's like to feel like you've finally got something real in your hands. I hate that I took that from you, even if it's necessary."

Jack glares at him. "You've done worse than rip away magic that isn't mine," he accuses. "On your list of offences, this is nothing compared to what you've already done."

"Please, try to understand," Mark begs, his eyes pleading. 

"I understand perfectly fine," Jack informs him. "You're too afraid to try and have a soulmate, no matter what, because of what could happen. Because you're powerful, and people crave that. Has it ever occurred to you that I'm in a similar situation?" he asks Mark. "That I'm in a place of power and yet I'm powerless to get out of it, to bolster myself through it to get what I want out of life?"

Mark is silent. His hand doesn't drop from the door. "Move," Jack mutters, "or I'll touch you."

Sharply Mark withdraws his hand, and Jack takes the opportunity to wrench the door open and hurriedly exit into the hall. Instead of shutting behind him, he hears footsteps following. "Jack, wait--"

"By the cosmos, Mark," Jack sighs angrily, "leave me alone and go back to your room." He pauses at his own door and Mark catches up to him, reaching out before quickly pulling back. Jack ignores that, adding, "You can't possibly have more to say to me."

"Yes," Mark says, then, "I mean no. I mean--shit, I don't know what I mean." He runs a hand through his fiery hair. "But I don't want to leave it at this. I feel like all I'm doing is taking things from you, and I want to do something to repay you."

"Then Brand me," Jack nearly snarls. "Claim me. It's the only thing you're supposed to do."

"I can't do that," Mark says regretfully. 

"Then you have nothing I need," Jack says, "and certainly nothing I should want." _Not that that stops me from wanting you,_ he thinks a little wistfully.

Mark makes a small noise of discontent. "It's nothing against you. It's just what I have to do."

"Yes," he mumbles. Suddenly, all of Jack's fight leaves him like a sink being drained of water. "Yes, I know. So let's just make it easier for both of us and cut this friendship off at the knees like you intended to before we thought I had magic." His shoulders sag, ruining his princely posture. "End it, so I can grieve properly."

"It'll be difficult to remain impartial if we see each other often," Mark says hesitantly. 

"I won't be in your way," Jack says softly. He doesn't move, in case his body does something foolish. "I'll make sure of it."

"Then, this is goodbye," Mark sighs.

"Goodbye," Jack says evenly, but he can't look at Mark's face. He stares at his shirt buttons, working hard to keep his face neutral and when Mark doesn't say anything else, Jack slips into his room and shuts the door. He waits until he hears Mark's steps take him back to his room. Once it's quiet again he slides to the floor with his back to the wall, and Jack lets the perpetual loneliness wash over him.

 

It takes a few weeks, but Jack finally stops waiting for Mark to come back to him. Whenever the two of them are in the same room with other courtiers or Jack's family, he's nothing but polite and gentlemanly. But if it's just the two of them, Mark makes his excuses and leaves as soon as possible. 

While he'd rather do the exact opposite, in return Jack makes sure never to seek Mark out. If they're forced into each other's company then he keeps to himself and avoids Mark whenever possible. But he can't escape forever. 

The Magister's Day Festival, held in the expansive front courtyard of the palace, is an elaborate and joyous occasion, with hundreds of stalls set up in rows with games to play and attractions to see. People come from all around the city to attend, nobility and citizen alike, and Jack usually looks forward to the event. There's always something to do or marvel at, and he enjoys himself every time he goes. But this year Mark is court mage, and as court mage he has his own skills to show off. Of course, it's also mandatory that Jack attend most of the more prestigious performances--including Mark's.

The morning of the festival Jack lingers in his bedroom, fully dressed in a button-up white shirt with the first few buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up, and a pair of light wash jeans. He has a pair of designer sandals on--which is the stupidest thing Jack's ever heard of--and he stares down at his bare toes. He wastes time playing music loudly through his expensive sound system, hoping the sound will drown his melancholy thoughts.

Unconsciously Jack searches into himself, still seeking the essence that's no longer there. He finds nothing, no matter how much he focuses, and after a long time of trying he's finally interrupted by a knock at his door. He lets his focus dribble away into nothing and gets to his feet to answer it.

It's Hannah, dressed prettily in a summer dress with spaghetti straps in a bright floral pattern. The skirt is flared and knee-length, baring her shapely calves and a pair of matching blue wedge heels. "Hey, Jack. It's time," she tells him. "Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Jack replies, half-smirking. He shuts his door behind him and holds out an arm to his sister, which she takes, and escorts her downstairs and outside to the courtyard.

When the doors open, sunlight blinds Jack for a brief moment. He blinks through it and his eyes adjust, and then he smiles as he takes it all in. Lined up in wide alleys is stall after stall, some small and some huge and plenty of sizes in between, but all colourful and eye-catching. There are food stalls, game stalls, merchandise stalls for jewelry, toys, clothing and wares of all kinds. Already the courtyard is clamouring with people, filled to overflowing with noise and activity. Near the main gate is a large stage, visible from nearly everywhere, that will hold the larger and more elaborate performances.

"Where's Kellan?" Jack asks his oldest sister, naming her husband. "And the rest of our family, for that matter." 

"They said they'd be near the fountain," she says pensively, craning her neck to see over the crowd. 

Jack nods and leads her through the scattered groups of people lining the stalls, emptying out into a circular area decorated mostly in hanging banners with the Crescentia family emblem on them. In its centre is a large round fountain, three-tiered and spewing water in a beautiful array of colours. As he watches the colours change, flickering through the rainbow endlessly. At its base is Jack's family including his siblings' spouses, and they're talking to a man with fire red hair.

He hesitates, jerking Hannah to a sudden stop with his hand in hers. She looks back at him with confusion. "What is it, Jack? They're right over there, come on."

"Yes, sorry," Jack says after a tense moment, following her as she approaches them. He swallows, fighting to keep his expression neutral. His palms are clammy, and he tucks his hands into his pockets when they come up to the group.

"There you are," Megan says, exasperated, and she gives Jack a quick hug. She's in a sparkling bejewelled dress, slim-fitting and pale yellow. Her husband, Deus, stands behind her with a crooked smile for Jack and Hannah. "We've been waiting! What took you so long?"

"I had to redo my makeup," Jack says, tongue-in-cheek. He grins widely and ducks when Megan swats at him. "Sorry, Meggie. I'm just a man, and we are usually late."

"May the stars guide your tardy carcass to a rotten future," Meg says, already gravitating back to her husband. "Ah well. Gran was just talking to Mage Fischbach. He's got a performance later on, but it seems his brother isn't here to keep him company until then."

Jack's already turning to find Mark before she's even finished speaking. The Terran is talking to his parents, looking wary but not overly uncomfortable. His brother couldn't make it? That means Mark doesn't have anyone to spend the day with.

"I'm sure he'd appreciate some company for the afternoon," Hannah says breezily, and Jack levels a piercing look at her. "And, Lord Felix is... well, he's occupied."

"What did you do?" Jack sighs, rubbing at his brow.

Megan and Hannah laugh, and the sound jars Jack's nerves. "Nothing," Megan says lightly. "He's just got something else to do. Which means you're also without someone, doesn't it?"

"Oh, be quiet," Jack mutters. "He won't want my company. I think he'd rather be alone than have to be saddled with me for an afternoon."

"Why don't you let him decide?" Hannah suggests. Her husband appears then, and both she and Meg are distracted from their brother and move away with idle waves in Jack's direction.

Looking over again Jack finds Mark, and is startled when he sees Mark looking back. The mage is separated from his parents, off to the side, and when Jack meets his eyes he strides towards him until there's mere feet between them.

"Good afternoon, Mage Fischbach," Jack says simply, keeping his hands firmly in his pockets and his eyes away from Mark's. "Enjoying the festival?"

"Not really," the mage replies, smiling ruefully. "I haven't been to any booths yet. I'm afraid I'm without companions, and it's not quite as fun by yourself."

Jack nods, glancing up to see Mark is still looking at him. "It isn't," he agrees. "I'm alone, too. But I've seen it enough times that I think it's fair if I don't have as good a time this year."

"That's not very exciting," Mark chuckles. "Why don't you show me the sights? If you'd like," he adds easily. "I'd love to see everything."

For a long moment Jack studies him, but Mark is kind of unreadable. He's all smiles and bright eyes, with a laid back posture and mildly excited expression. He seems to just want company, no matter who it is. Jack's more than a little surprised that the first option would be himself.

"And you're... you're sure it's me you want to be stuck with?" Jack asks, before he can stop the words. "It isn't exactly wise, from your point of view." Too many circumstances where they might accidentally touch, and without the protection of magical gloves.

"I'm sure," Mark says softly. "I don't think I could get a better guide than you."

_So that's it,_ Jack thinks with a small sigh. _I'm his guide, the best option because I was born here, have lived here since birth, and have attended every festival because of that._ "Then let's get to it," Jack says with forced cheer. He gestures down the alley to their immediate left, saying, "This one's mostly games and stuff. Most of them are one or two gold per round, which isn't too bad of a price." He starts walking, and when he looks back Mark is following closely. "A lot of the games are luck-based or take a ridiculous amount of precision, but they're pretty fun, if a waste of time."

"Sounds exactly like the carnivals at home," Mark says pleasantly, inhaling deeply as they pass a food stall. "Mmm, Christ, that smells good."

"We'll eat later," Jack tells him. "First let's see how you do with some games."

Jack brings him up to a game that's comprised of a large tub full of water with multiple sizes of colour-sorted orbs littering its surface. "The goal of this one is to get the smallest ball possible in three tries," Jack says over the loud conversations around them. "But if you get something big, you have to get something smaller than the one you just pulled on your next try, or your game is over. Make sense?"

"Easy," Mark says, smirking arrogantly. He cracks his knuckles and steps up to the stall front, offering a coin to the man behind the counter. He's given a small poking stick which he has to use to spear a ball and rolls his shoulders. 

Jack watches with amusement as Mark stabs a relatively large ball on his first attempt, fishing it out of the water with a frown. He tries again, barely getting a size smaller from the last one, and then he spends an obnoxious amount of time trying to poke the littlest ball in the tub, which he doesn't even do.

Mark pulls the medium-sized orb off his stick and hands them both over to the man behind the counter, who smiles. "Good first run," the man says to Mark. "Next size up and you get a prize. Good luck next time!"

"This is rigged," Mark whispers mutinously once they've turned away, making Jack smile.

"Don't take it so hard," Jack says with a small laugh. "They enchant the balls to be extra slippery. Otherwise it's too easy." He leads Mark down the alley, pointing out more stalls as they pass them. He explains the games that Mark isn't familiar with, and some of them are similar or identical to ones he knows from Earth.

A decent way down the alley from the fountain Jack watches as Mark plays a throwing game, where the goal is to hit the centre of the circular target with a small disc and have it stick into the wood in order to get points. "Oh, that one was close!" he exclaims when Mark almost hits the centre.

Mark exhales with a hint of frustration in his fourth round, lobbing the last disc of five. It makes a _thok_ sound as it lodges itself into the wood precisely over the painted centre. Mark blinks at the target, then grins madly. "Ha!" he shouts, pointing at the target emphatically in triumph. "I showed you!"

"You sure did," Jack laughs. "Great job, Mark. You get one of the big prizes."

The woman at their stall smiles and gestures to the display off to the side. It shows two things side by side. The first is a cute, lifelike stuffed animal of an austrec, a creature native to Glisa with a furry, elongated body and short limbs, an owl-like face and big black eyes. The other object is a gyrating circle, interlocked with two more fluttering shapes. The three revolve around one another without ever intersecting, instead morphing their shape to prevent contact with the other shapes. The object is in constant motion, hovers slightly above its resting place and glows a bright green.

"They're both pretty cool," Jack says, but his eyes fixate on the moving green shape. "Which one do you want?"

Mark says without hesitation, "The Amorph, please." The woman nods and goes behind the stall and brings back a small box, handing it to Mark with a big smile. "Thanks," Mark says, and they turn back to the alley crowded with people.

"Is that what that orb thing is called?" Jack asks him as they walk back towards the fountain. "An Amorph?"

"It's a wide-branching term for any object created through magical means," Mark explains, "that has no real purpose besides being captivating in some way." He tosses the box back and forth in his hands casually. "This one will add nicely to my collection of useless, cool things."

Jack smiles at the look of easy happiness on Mark's face as they walk, and for one fleeting moment he wonders if it's because of him. But Mark continues on, gushing about the Amorphs in his room and their various appearances, and Jack remembers that he's just a guide. So he listens, smiles when Mark looks at him and ignores the sad tug of his heart.

"I'm starving," Mark says, eyeing the alley to their right where several food stalls are visible. "Want to get something to eat?"

"Sure," Jack says agreeably, and follows when Mark bee-lines for the makeshift street of food booths. Jack doesn't have to explain anything here, since a lot of the food is imported from Earth or, if it's Glisan, is recognizable enough to Mark. They opt for pizza when the smell is too much to resist.

The pair sits on the edge of the fountain to eat and Jack watches people come and go around him. Mark is silent beside him, too busy stuffing his face, but it's hardly quiet without his conversation. 

"I like you dressed like that," Mark says a short while after they've finished eating, making Jack turn to him with surprise. He elaborates, "You know, dressed normally. You never looked quite comfortable when you were in your fancy things. You look more relaxed."

_What do you care what I'm dressed like?_ "Thanks, I guess," Jack murmurs. He hardly feels more relaxed, though. Mark's proximity is wearing on him, despite having a good time hanging out. The longer he spends next to Mark the more he wants to touch him, the more he craves it, and he knows no matter what that he can't have it.

Mark frowns, turning to face Jack directly. "What, did I say something wrong?"

"I'm just not sure what you're doing with me," Jack says quietly. "After everything that's happened, I figured..." He shrugs, eyeing Mark. "I figured you'd make skid marks on your way out of my life. We said goodbye, for cosmos' sake."

"I know. Damn it, I know. I'm..." The mage sighs, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his jean-clad knees. He looks up at Jack with a strange expression, somehow deep and searching. "I'm having a lot of difficulty staying away from you, Your Highness."

Jack stares into dark brown pools, and the festivities around him seem to fall away. "Just Jack will do," he says softly, offering a small smile.

"Just Jack," Mark says, spoken in a delicate hush like a promise. Jack ducks his head, unsure what to take from that. Mark's face sobers into something more serious. "Would you come see my performance?"

"I'm ordered to attend, actually," Jack tells him. "My mother is trying to get back at me for dressing like your average vagabond, by her standards anyway."

Mark chuckles. "Best-looking vagabond I've seen," he muses, and smiles wide when he sees Jack blush. "I might have to flatter you more often. You don't seem accustomed to it."

"Please don't," Jack says with a grimace, but then he smiles a little. "I'm well used to flattery, but... everything is different with you. Everything." He looks away rather than meet Mark's eyes, instead looking out to the bustling crowd around the fountain.

"How do you feel about soulmates?" Mark asks abruptly. Jack turns back to him. "Really, your honest opinion."

Jack shrugs. "For the longest time I thought they weren't an option, basically. What my family had instilled--or tried to instil--in me was that nothing but nobility would suit me for a partner. And because I grew up with a mind of my own, that didn't suit me to think my soulmate had to be someone born sucking on a silver spoon. But if they weren't nobility, my chances of finding a mate that I could keep were... well, slim to say the least. No simple citizen would do, you see," Jack snorts, shaking his head. "Not just anybody could be my soulmate. It was nobility or nothing. So I got used to the idea that I would never find them, and if I did that I wouldn't be able to keep them anyway." He lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. "I was right."

Mark is quiet for a few seconds, processing. "What about--" He pauses, then tries again, "What about after you met me? What about after you knew we were..."

"When I met you," Jack sighs, "I was agitated, and I didn't know why. I thought it was because I didn't like you, but in hindsight I saw it was nerves and excitement. The first time we met I was wary too, if intrigued, but after the dinner with my family you helped alleviate some fears I had. And when I knew we were bonded, the universe tilted on its axis. Everything was in different perspective. I suddenly needed you, like nothing I've ever needed or wanted before. Just knowing that you were supposed to be my match in every way, I had hope that someone would finally understand me." 

"But your sisters seem to get you," Mark disputes, "and your friend Lord Felix."

The prince smirks. "My sisters only get me when I'm at my happiest," Jack says. "Otherwise they want little to do with me unless they're meddling and trying to set me up with you. Felix, he's there for me, and he knows me really well. But he's on another wavelength. His head is in the clouds, which isn't a bad thing, but I'm rooted down here and he can't empathize with me half the time. I used to think I was close to my grandparents, but once my grandfather passed away my Gran was different. Harder. She played with me less, paid me less attention. I learned to deal with it."

"You're alone," Mark mumbles, but he doesn't look sad when Jack glances at him. He looks guilty as all hell.

That look does something to Jack's pitiful heart, but he doesn't let it get to him. "Don't worry about it," Jack reassures him, standing. He checks his watch. "It's almost time for your performance. We should go."

Wearily Mark gets to his feet. "Have I apologized, for what I've done?" he asks.

"A few times," Jack muses, touched by the pleading look in Mark's eyes. "Follow me."

Jack leads Mark across the courtyard to the large stage near the gates, where his parents, siblings and their spouses linger in the secluded seating area for the royal family. He comes to a stop near the foot of the stage and turns to Mark, who's watching him with a light in his eyes.

"Here we are," Jack says, leaning against the front of the stage. "I'm sure you don't need help from here?" He smiles cheekily.

"I'm starting to see what a huge mistake I've made," Mark says instead of answering, looking at him, unblinking. 

Jack inhales, bolstering his courage, and edges a few inches closer. "You're not missing anything that you can't still have," Jack tells him quietly.

That makes Mark grin wide. He bends the slightest bit to whisper, "I'll hold you to that, Jack." Then he backs up and gives a brief wave, quickly disappearing behind the stage.

Jack floats over to his family on a cloud of hope, trying his best to cover the stupid look he knows is on his face. Instantly Julianna snaps, "You missed three performances. Where were you?"

"Escorting Mage Fischbach," he replies, sitting in a seat far away from his mother. "He had no one to show him around." Jack finds a savage delight in the way her eyes almost bug out of her head.

"You escorted a mage around for an afternoon?" she shrills. "Have you no respect for your station?"

"Almost none," Jack tells her honestly, and slouches back into his chair. He hears Seamus' snort of laughter somewhere behind his father. "I wasn't about to let the man spend a day alone when I'm perfectly capable of entertaining him for a couple hours."

Julianna exhales harshly. "Stars help me," she growls to herself, sitting angrily. Her husband joins her, murmuring something in her ear. 

It's another few minutes before the host comes on stage to introduce Mark's performance. Jack hardly pays attention as the man carries on about Mark's many achievements--he's searching avidly for the familiar flare of red hair from behind the curtain. Finally the host ends his spiel and steps back off stage, and the crowd hushes.

The curtain parts on its own, separating to show... nothing. There's a void of nothingness behind the partition, but as Jack watches there's a spot of light that appears in the dark. It grows, first a speck and then a dot, then an enlarging circle that stops when it's nearly overpowering the darkness. In a flash the circle bursts into flame, the edges sparking radically. The fire roars with life, engulfing the curtains at first and progressing on to the rest of the stage.

The crowd titters, worried whispers travelling around Jack. Some of the people in the front row are getting out of their seats, and even Jack's family is uneasy, but Jack himself waits.

With a sound like cannon fire, the circle explodes as something bursts from it and onto the stage with a crash. Gasps ring out along with some surprised shrieks and a few screams from the crowd. Upon the object's landing the fires go out in a collective whirl of wind, but the smoke left behind still obscures whatever just emerged from the circle from view.

A real, animalistic, calamitous roar clamours through the air from within the cloud, and now everyone around Jack is nervously looking on. But the young prince is on the edge of his seat, eagerly waiting to see what will happen.

The smoke begins to clear, but before it fully dissipates a huge reptilian head slips from within and feral, glowing eyes peer down at the people before it.

_A dragon,_ Jack thinks dumbly, awestruck. A huge gust of wind clears the remaining smoke, revealing the extended wings of the dragon, high-reaching and powerful. The beast is enormous, its massive body taking up the entirety of the stage as it gazes around, its eyes flicking from person to person. Powerful legs, thick and iridescently scaled, grind large ivory claws into the platform beneath it. In one smooth motion its leathery wings fold up along its spiny back, and its tail--which is too long to fit with it on stage--stretches out to the side of the stage, the tip twitching occasionally. Bright, shiny scales glitter like gemstones in the sunlight, and every time Jack blinks he sees another colour in them.

The first pealing scream comes from the crowd, and then people are clambering from their seats, falling over in their haste to get away. Most of Jack's family stays sitting, Malcolm being the only one to stand, but when Jack glances over he sees that even the men are looking a little grey. 

"Wait," Jack tells his brother, who looks ready to unholster the plasma pistol always at his hip and pounce on the creature. Malcolm looks at him incredulously, but Jack insists as he turns back towards the show, "Just wait."

The dragon lifts its head to the sky and parts its jaws, and a deep, voracious rumbling comes from within its chest. The sound reaches a crescendo and the dragon spews a tongue of flame from its maw that billows a fireball into the air above them. The fire transforms mid-air into a huge mass of flower petals and sparkling, diamond-like particles that rain down over the crowd.

Silence drops heavily--even the dragon is quiet, now sitting on its haunches and seemingly waiting for something. The sparkling dust and petals fall over Jack, and he feels the familiar burning tingle that Mark's magic stirs in him. Suddenly the dragon leans its head forward and, on the bare ground in front of the stage, it belches a second fire spout, this one white-hot and drawn out much longer. When its head rears back again, the pyre on the ground snuffs out in a whoosh of air and Mark stands in its place, grinning wide with his arms held high.

There's a short, tense pause before the crowd, hanging back as far as possible from the dragon, bursts into excited, raucous noise. Cheers clutter the air and Mark bows once before hopping up onto the stage and putting a hand on the dragon's shoulder. The noise falters a little, but the dragon only dips its head in its own form of a bow when Mark bends at the waist again. When the people seem to understand that they're safe, their cheers become deafening.

Jack grins and gets to his feet, clapping like a maniac and whistling loudly. His sisters are both on their feet, cheering, but both his brothers and his sisters' husbands remain in their seats, looking floored. His brothers' wives are tight to their husbands' sides, like they're afraid of being snatched up like a damsel in distress. Jack gives his grandmother, who's also standing and clapping politely, a curious look. She catches his eyes and winks, making him smile.

Turning back to the stage and watching intently, Jack feels an odd sense of separation when Mark turns to apparently talk to the dragon beside him. He's a little shocked when the dragon's mouth opens and closes in speech, its eyes fixed on Mark. But then those orange, slit-pupil eyes, glimmering with something Jack is sure is magic, turn to him. He freezes in place, gripped with an instinctual fear even though he knows he's not in danger.

"Is it--Is that thing looking at you?" Jack's mother asks him sharply.

"I guess," Jack answers over the noise of the crowd, but he doesn't look away from the dragon. It takes him a moment to notice that Mark is waving him over, smiling wide. He moves forward with obvious trepidation but his feet still get him to where Mark waits, encouraging Jack to join him on stage.

Once Jack clambers his way onto the platform, he more or less hides behind Mark when the dragon's head swivels on its long neck to peer intently at him. "Why am I here?" he asks the Terran, nervously holding eye contact with a veritable monster.

"Qelsam wanted to meet you," Mark tells him. "He saw you convince your brother not to attack him."

"Oh," Jack squeaks. He keeps his mouth shut, afraid to say something offensive.

The dragon, Qelsam, curls his upper lip to bare a set of razor-sharp, pearly fangs. Jack is startled, already backing away, but Mark says quickly, "It's okay! He's smiling."

"Smiling," Jack parrots, unmoving as he stares. The dragon's individual teeth are the size of his hand.

Qelsam's head lowers until he meets Jack's eyes at his level. "I'm grateful not to have to pluck a plasma bullet from my hide," booms the dragon, his voice rumbling from deep in his chest. "And I see that I have you to thank for that."

Jack unconsciously holds his breath while Qelsam speaks, then mutters out a weak, "You're welcome. Sir." _How does one address a dragon?_ Jack wonders as he stares into those glistening eyes. 

Mark laughs beside him, and Qelsam makes a couple of short, coughing noises. Jack can only assume that he's laughing, but doubts he has the courage to double check and ask. "Qelsam is pretty laid-back," Mark tells him. "You don't have to call him "sir". Just call him Qelsam, or Sam."

"Sam the dragon," Jack laughs, slightly hysterical. A laid-back dragon could still be more uptight than even the most curmudgeonly human, so he's not about to take a leap of faith on what Mark tells him about a _dragon_.

"A pleasure," Qelsam growls, his nose dipping slightly. 

A short laugh of disbelief escapes Jack before he can smother it. "Likewise," he says, making a gargantuan effort to remain at ease.

"Sean!" calls a voice, and the two men turn to see Jack's parents looking on in abject discomfort. Their eyes never stray from Qelsam. "It's time to go," his mother calls. "Now."

Jack bristles. _Can't she let me be for one day?_ "I'm good here," he calls back. "Making friends, you know how it is."

"I said, _now_ ," Julianna snaps, approaching the stage. As she gets closer, her face loses all its colour. "It wasn't a request."

Before Jack can reply Qelsam lowers his head to look directly at his mother. She freezes in place, horrified. "I believe, Your Highness, the little one said he is content to stay where he is," he rumbles. "I thought I might repeat it, since you seemed not to have heard him."

"O-of course," she babbles, then turns tail and practically runs in the opposite direction without another word. Jack's grandmother, leading the remainder of the family from their seating area, gives the three of them a charming smile and a wave before following her daughter-in-law.

"Thank you for deterring her," Jack says, and Qelsam's orange, fiery eyes turn on him. "You have no idea how irritating she is."

"I have an inkling," the dragon says, baring his teeth in a smile. Qelsam's neck straightens and his head lifts far above them, observing the obvious unease of the people still present. He rolls his shoulders, and Jack hears the soft, sort of metallic scraping sound as his scales rub together. "But I think my welcome is worn out."

"I wish you could stay longer," Mark says, frowning. "Though," he adds with humour as he glances at the crowd, "I understand why it's best you go."

Qelsam's enormous head bobs in a nod, and he clacks his jaws together once with a sharp snap. "Home, then, if you please."

Mark gives him a smile, then gestures for Jack to step back. He does, going as far as jumping down off the stage. Mark lifts his arms high, palms out towards Qelsam, and a sphere of translucent, blue energy fizzles into existence, completely engulfing the dragon. Vaguely Jack can hear Mark speaking something, what sounds like a long and convoluted spell, and when it's done the sphere disappears, taking Qelsam with it.

Jack peers down at the claw marks in the flooring of the stage. "Tell me, how does one befriend a dragon?" he muses, eyeing Mark as he hops down onto the ground beside Jack.

The mage smirks, rubbing at his flaming hair. "By accident," he chuckles. He motions Jack to lead the way back to the festival, and then walks alongside him. "When I was in my last year at the Institute, I had a fellow student try an apparition spell on me. He swore up and down that he'd perfected it, and that I would only be sent to the main hall of the building. Thinking nothing of it--he was a good student, you see--I let him perform it on me. Well, he was wrong." 

"Where did you end up?" Jack asks.

"Still on Earth, thankfully," Mark says with a crooked smile. "Less thankfully, I was in a dragon sanctuary in Northern Ireland. It was a good thing it was me, and no one else. I almost didn't survive."

Jack's eyebrows rise. "Qelsam saved you, didn't he?" he asks knowingly.

Mark nods, grinning. "I had been there for a few hours, trying to get my bearings and figure out where I was and why my transport spells weren't working, when I came across the first dragon." Mark shakes himself a little, as if to shake off a memory. "She was a mother and had two fledgelings with her. Needless to say she was not happy that I was anywhere near her young. She breathed fire at me for over half an hour when she had me cornered in a rock crevasse, and once I was free she chased me about a third of the way through the sanctuary. It took another dragon interfering for her to finally let me be.

"At first I thought, "Oh god, now I'm a tug rope," but she ended up forfeiting her pursuit to shred me into ribbons and left me alone." They slide through the last vestiges of the crowd and reach the fountain, both men sitting on its edge. Jack turns eagerly towards Mark, listening intently. Mark smiles at him. "Once she was gone, the other dragon looked me over for a long time. I didn't know what it was looking for, but I wasn't courageous enough to do much besides sit there and hope it didn't try and take a chunk out of me. I was quiet, and it was quiet, and we just sat there and stared at one another."

Mark leans back onto one hand, lazily dragging his fingers through the fountain water. "After a long damn time I finally asked it if it was going to kill me, and its reply was a simple, "Hardly." So I stood up from my petrified ball of fear and introduced myself." Mark smiles, then laughs softly. "He told me his name was Qelsam, informed me of where I was, and offered to guide me to the sanctuary border. Dragon sanctuaries, and fae sanctuaries, don't allow magic casting of any kind within the borders, which is why my spells wouldn't work. He led me to safety and told me that for a human, I would make an alright friend."

"Stars above," Jack says, laughing. "That'll be a story for the history books."

"Well, I'm hardly the first one to befriend a dragon," Mark says magnanimously. "And Qelsam is quite young for a dragon. He's not old enough to be as jaded as his predecessors, and he had no offspring to protect either. I was very lucky he decided to save me."

Jack dips his fingers into the water, wiggling them and making ripples. "He's an incredible creature," he murmurs. "Even being as scared as I was, I'm glad to have met him."

"He liked you, too," Mark informs him. "Though, I don't see how anyone couldn't like you." He grins widely when Jack looks up at him, pink-faced. "I haven't asked you yet. How did you like the show?"

"Amazing," Jack says instantly. "I couldn't tear my eyes away the whole time. Well, except to tell Malcolm not to shoot Qelsam."

Mark looks at him, his eyes searching. He slides a few inches closer to Jack across the stone of the fountain, and the prince doesn't hide his shock. "Answer me something, Jack," he murmurs.

"What is it?" Jack replies, his heart doing a flamenco dance behind his ribs.

"If I..." Mark hesitates, then tries again, "If we Branded, what would happen?"

His heart skips a beat. "I would stay with you," Jack tells him. "Indefinitely. Wherever life took you, I would follow."

"Even knowing the danger I would be putting you in?" Mark asks bitterly. "Would you still want to stay if something happened to you and I couldn't protect you?"

"I want to stay now, and I will want to stay forever," Jack replies, narrowing his eyes. "Your being unable to account for every possibility in life has nothing to do with how much time we would have together. If something happened, then it happened because we weren't lucky enough to grow old and die after good, long lives--not because you weren't good enough to protect or save me."

Mark sighs hard, looking down at their hands in the water then up at Jack's face. "I don't know if I would be strong enough to handle losing you," he admits quietly.

"Then don't lose me," Jack says, scooting closer. "Don't think about a life without me. Just cherish me now, love me now. Please, Mark." He holds Mark's gaze, his hands itching to touch.

"God, you make me want to," he groans, and Jack can see the muscles in his forearms tense. Abruptly Mark pulls back and stands up, wiping his wet hand on his jeans. "I can't do this right now. I'll... I'll see you later." Without looking back he rushes towards the palace, disappearing quickly into the crowd and out of view.

Jack looks after him for a long moment, staring at the last place he saw him. He's close, he's so damn close, but Mark is still fighting him about their safety if they did Brand one another. It's his only argument, and it's a good one, but Jack still knows that they can make it. If only Mark could show a little faith.

 

"Just like that, he left?" Felix says indignantly, eyes on a pacing Jack in the prince's game room. "After you said all that?"

"He's not..." Jack shrugs helplessly. "He's not in love with me, or even likes me that much. He's not with the idea and he's definitely not into me. Mark has said a lot of promising things recently, but..." Jack paces, wringing his hands nervously. "It's been almost a week since the festival and I haven't heard anything from him."

Felix scowls. "That is literally the point of soulmates," he argues. "To have the ingrained ability to basically love your soulmate on sight, or at the very least within a few days." He crosses his arms angrily. "It's been almost two months and you still aren't together. This blasted mage is throwing a wrench into everything."

"His aim is great, at least," Jack says with black humour, and Felix stares at him, unimpressed.

Suddenly Felix sits up straight in his chair. "Hold on. Just hold the fuck on. Has he seen you naked?"

Jack blushes beet-red, hesitating slightly in his pacing. "Unless he's magically been peeping at me through the wall, no. Damn it, Felix, what's that got to do with anything?"

"Hear me out," Felix rushes, getting to his feet and grabbing Jack by the arms to halt him in his tracks. "You know Lady Augustine? She and I were talking a few days ago over lunch and she told me all about the whole soulmate thing. She said when they finally had sex it was like a bomb went off in her chest when she saw him for the first time without clothes."

"Mark won't be in my presence long enough for me to get my clothes off," Jack informs him drolly. "Never mind if I can find him at all. He's avoiding me, Felix."

"You've got a swimming pool, don't you?" Felix asks, snarky. "Put on some trunks and go for a dip. The way Lady Augustine tells it, the more tension is between you, the crazier you'll get for each other once the tension breaks."

Jack shakes off his hands and sighs. "And what do you suggest I do to get him near the pool? Do a magician mating call?"

"I mean, you could try," Felix says, tongue-in-cheek, and Jack swipes at him. The young lord jumps back to avoid the blow and smirks. "Come on. What could you lose by giving it a shot?"

"My dignity, the respect of my peers," Jack lists. "The emotional integrity of my heart." He quirks his mouth and looks at Felix. "You're asking me to flaunt around in the hopes that Mark might see me and fall head over heels in love with me because he sees my average body."

"Crazier things have happened," Felix coaxes, grinning. "You can't give up, Jack. It's not in your nature."

_Why does he always have to be right?_ Jack thinks with a sigh. "Alright, fine. I'll prance around in a bathing suit if that will get you off my back."

"I'll find him and... coerce him in your direction," Felix says, already moving to leave the room. "Get changed, and good luck." Then he's gone, disappearing through the door. 

Jack goes to his closet and takes out his rarely used swimming shorts, a blue and green splatter-print on a white background. He undresses and puts them on, throwing on a simple white shirt and slipping on a pair of sandals. He grabs a towel from his bathroom and makes his way downstairs. 

Once he's poolside, Jack claims a lounge chair and dumps his towel and sandals on it. After a nervous, self-conscious glance around him--the pool area is scant of people, just a middle-aged couple basking in the sun in lounge chairs a few metres away from him--Jack sheds his shirt and tosses that onto his chair, too.

He sits on the edge of the pool and dangles his legs into the water, unsure whether he wants to actually swim or just sunbathe and draw Mark's attention that way. Would being wet encourage Mark more? _Is there a moisture ratio chart for soulmates that I can reference for this?_

For a generous amount of time he's content to sit on the edge and stare down into the water, kicking his legs slowly and watching the water move. Nerves have long since devolved his insides to mush, writhing and roiling within him like serpents, and once he's had his fill of immobility Jack slips off the edge of the pool and into the cool water. 

He treads water for a while to stay above the surface, then submerges briefly to wet his head. Smoothing his bangs out of his face when he breaches again, Jack pauses, feeling someone watching him. As he turns he's gripped with a sense of déjà vu--Mark is standing at the pool's edge, staring at Jack and looking as stunned as if someone had just laid a chair across his head. 

"Mark, hi," Jack says nervously. 

"Your Highness," Mark replies, his voice cracking. He clears his throat and looks away. "Your--your friend Lord Felix told me you were in trouble, but I can see that, uh..." When he glances back Mark's sentence dies out, his eyes all over Jack like he can't bear to look away again.

"I'm not in trouble," Jack assures him, slowly smiling. He swims to the edge where Mark stands and hoists himself out. He gets to his feet to see that Mark hasn't moved, and they're close. Like always, his fingers physically itch to have Mark beneath them, touching and tracing every detail. "Were you worried?" he asks softly, edging just a bit closer. Water drips off him in cascades, wetting the ground under him.

Mark nods, his gaze now unerringly on Jack's mouth. "I'm always worried about you," the mage admits hoarsely. 

Jack's heart does cartwheels when he hears that. "I'm only in danger when you're not around," he murmurs, severely invading Mark's personal space. "Only when you're not with me." His face hardens a bit. "Why have you been avoiding me?"

"Because you do things like this," Mark whispers, shutting his eyes and rubbing them wearily. "I know how much you want it, and I can't..." He sighs, opening his eyes and looking at his soulmate. "I can't do this, Jack."

_So much for Felix's idea,_ Jack thinks, disappointed. _And so much for everything Mark said at the festival._ Jack nods minutely and backs up towards the lounge chair with his things. "Okay," he says quietly. "I'd...Well, I'd try to convince you but," he laughs a little, even as his heart twinges with pain, "it wouldn't make a difference." He turns away, gathering his stuff. He puts on his sandals and runs without looking back.

Mark doesn't come after him, and Jack doesn't expect it. Once he's in his room Jack showers, washing the failure away with hot water, suds and steam. Unsurprisingly Felix is waiting when he comes out again, fully dressed in shorts and a blue t-shirt. 

"I'm sorry," is the first thing the blond says. "I thought for sure that would work."

"His will is like iron," Jack says, shrugging. "I'm not a good enough prospect to change his mind, and he won't change it otherwise." He brushes his hair out of his eyes, looking out to the terrace, but he doesn't move. "I'd like to be alone, Fe."

Felix nods, looking pitiful as he waves over his shoulder and leaves Jack's room. When he's gone Jack climbs into bed, clothes and all, and he sleeps, but even his dreams don't let him forget.

 

The morning of his birthday Jack wakes early. It's not that unusual now, him being up before he's supposed to be. He doesn't sleep that well anymore.

He dresses in jeans and a brown long-sleeve shirt, then makes his way down to the throne room. It's empty, but he expected as much. Jack kneels at a pew near the front of the room and bows his head, wordlessly offering thanks and prayer. Somehow the action comforts him, and offers him a little bit of separation from his problems. He thinks about praying for his own fortune, for his own happiness, but it's as far-reaching as it's ever been and Jack doubts his ancestors would be able to do much anyway.

Vaguely Jack hears the creak of the door, but doesn't bother getting up or turning. It's probably his grandmother coming to pray. He hears no footsteps but suddenly someone is at his side, a hand roughly on his arm. 

"Hey!" Jack snaps, wrenching his arm free and turning to the person. He's met with a plasma pistol in his face, the barrel staring him in the eye. He freezes.

"Be quiet, or you die," he's told by the man standing next to him. He's wearing a mask, one resembling an eagle, so Jack has no idea who he is. Jack can guess what he's after, though. 

When it's obvious Jack listened to his command, he grabs Jack by the arm again and hauls him to his feet. He holds Jack close to his side, pressing the pistol against his back, and makes his way quickly down the aisle and out of the throne room.

Being as early as it is, there's no servants or courtiers around even if Jack did yell. He sees no guards, though, and that worries him. He doesn't have time to ponder it as the man takes him briskly out of the palace and into the front courtyard where a small ship waits, idling. There's two more masked men inside that Jack sees through the glass of the ship's windshield. He's pushed more than escorted on board, and one of the men inside--wearing a gorilla mask--grabs him again before he can even think about running.

"Buckle up, Your Highness," Gorilla snickers, shoving him roughly into a seat. "It's a long ride from here to Solas, and you're worth more undamaged." Too late, Jack realizes they would've never killed him. 

_Solas,_ Jack thinks desolately. It's a trading post in the next star system, but it's technically not in federation space and therefore no military or peacekeeping organizations hold jurisdiction there. It's also the nearest place to access the black market, specifically the slave trade.

Jack fastens his harness with a growing sense of dread. He watches his home shrink away as the ship lifts off, and then they're outside the atmosphere and speeding away, every inch taking him closer towards his new, darker fate.

 

By the time they reach Solas, Jack's watch tells him that it's past noon at home. He hasn't eaten and his stomach is growling uncomfortably with hunger, but he's not about to ask for something to eat. 

The man on his left, who has a pistol levelled at his gut, gives him a hard stare when his stomach rumbles again. His mask is of a fox. "Are you hungry or something?" he asks curtly, his accent distinctly from Earth. "We have food."

Jack lifts his chin slightly. "No thank you," he says, equally curt, and turns away.

Fox laughs. "Well, well, Mr. Prince. Look who's too good for our grub," he taunts, poking Jack in the chest with the pistol. The other two laugh from the pilot and co-pilot seats, taxiing into an available spot at the converted space station's docking area.

Irritably Jack slaps the pistol away. He's getting less cautious by the minute now, and he knows it's dangerous but he can't help it. "Don't touch me," he snarls.

Before Jack can avoid it, Fox strikes him hard across his face with the gun. "You don't know how much I want to shoot you for that," Fox says coolly. "But as it is, you're in good condition. No need for any extra holes."

Jack holds a hand to his cheek, looking down at his bare toes. His face throbs in pain but he makes no sound. He glares scathingly at the man beside him. "You'd better hope this toy is faster than my brother's fleet," Jack tells him with eyes like fire. "Or you'll wish you were never born."

"A lot of big talk for someone who has to be saved," Fox says, unimpressed. He stands, giving Jack a long look before he hits him again with the pistol. "Just in case you get any ideas, remember where you are. Solas is a big place, with lots of little rabbit holes for lost princes to fall in. We're giving you the best treatment that you'll find here. So don't forget that."

"Forgive me if I don't put stock in what my kidnapper tells me," Jack snaps, lowering his hands from his bruised face to clench them angrily at his sides. _I'm completely powerless,_ Jack thinks, his mind wildly searching for solutions. If he had magic he could've probably gotten himself out of this fairly easily. But it's not as if Mark knew this would happen. He can't fault the man for wanting to keep what's his.

For one crazy, hopeful second Jack imagines that Mark comes to save him, not Malcolm. _Pipe dreams,_ he scolds himself. Mark wouldn't come save him. He's trying to get every trace of Jack out of his life by avoiding him, not speaking with him when they do happen to see each other somewhere within the palace. Not exactly the actions of a man who would drop everything to rescue him from kidnapping and slavery.

The ship is docked, which means Jack is out of time. Eagle comes from the pilot's seat, Gorilla close behind, and the three men each train a gun on Jack and parade him from the ship.

Solas' docking area is dirty, like the rest of Solas, and cluttered with merchants, advertising anything from illicit goods lined up in dingy stalls to the specific, illegal services of some barely-clothed men and women. Jack can't help but stare at the ankle shackles on them with a deep foreboding.

"Take it in, little prince," Gorilla says, chuckling. "Your near future is something along the lines of that."

_I'll die first,_ Jack thinks mutinously. He's no blackbelt, but over his years of sparring with Felix and the guards, Jack has learned more than a thing or two about self-defense. If he got his hands on one of their guns, the chances of escape are slim against three men, but... he always has a second way out.

His kidnappers lead Jack through the docking section and into the space station, taking two elevators and a handful of hallways before they empty out into Solas' main trading area. No one gives him a second glance, even as he's led at gunpoint times three. Good old Solas.

Gorilla keeps a firm grip on his arm as Eagle says, "Wait here. We'll go find Bardom and then call for you." With that, Eagle and Fox leave, weaving through the crowds around the alcoves where trading statistics and prices litter the floating holographic screens. It's loud here, and still somewhat filthy. Everyone is yelling for something, pushing and shoving to get where they need to go, and Jack finds himself wanting to be back in the dirtier, quieter section of the station.

"Don't get any ideas," Gorilla warns him, and his grip becomes painful. "I'll shoot you if you try to bolt."

"Yippee," Jack says dryly, scowling at him. "Whatever happened to "you're less valuable with holes"?"

Gorilla scoffs meanly. "You're still worth enough if you're... damaged," he says, and the smirk is audible in his voice.

"How did you get into the palace? In Crescentia?" Jack asks him, keeping hostility out of his tone and aiming for curious.

The man is silent for a moment, seemingly studying him, before he shrugs and says, "Ah, what the hell. It's not like you're going back. We used a device we got here on Solas--from this guy we're trading with, Bardom--to jam the signals used by the guards' armbands for shift switch coordinating. Without it, the last guys on shift leave and the next guys think they've still got time before they start. No guards at their posts. Easy to snatch a prince. Though, you were supposed to be in your bed sleeping, not awake."

"I don't sleep much," Jack mutters. If he survives, he has valuable information for his grandmother about their security, at least, and the name of one of the men responsible for his kidnapping. If he doesn't... well, security issues will be the least of his problems.

He stays silent after that, and Gorilla doesn't speak either. A handful of minutes pass and then the phone on Gorilla's hip is ringing shrilly. He answers it, but his gun is still trained at Jack unerringly. "Yeah... Okay, got it." He puts the phone back on the holder at his hip, ushering Jack forward. "C'mon, princeling. Your time's up."

A doomed feeling settles in Jack's body, tight and nervous, as Gorilla marches him along, a gun barrel pressed to his side. They manoeuvre through the crowd, Gorilla shoving people roughly when they don't move quickly enough for him, and soon Jack is at a secluded store front with no name, just a picture of a rampaging bear over the door. Gorilla pulls him inside.

In the shop, it's barren of furniture and items except for one file cabinet and one desk, behind which sits a very fat man with a large, red beard and beady little eyes. Bardom, Jack assumes. Fox and Eagle are standing near the desk, talking with him, but all three turn to look as Gorilla tugs Jack to them.

"Perfect," says the man, eyeing Jack with crude, unflattering appreciation. "A prince, too! I'm glad my gadget worked." He stands, and somehow he seems fatter when upright. Bardom walks around the desk and stops in front of Jack. "You seem a little too calm to be a captive," he says. 

Jack says nothing, instead spitting on the floor in front of him. His eyes challenge the man to do something about it.

But Bardom only laughs. "Well! You'll be fun for your owner to break." He turns to Fox. "Get him tied up. The next ship leaves in forty minutes. We need him sold by then."

Fox nods, and Eagle opens the bottom drawer of the cabinet to pull out a long length of rope. Jack stiffens when the man approaches him, backing up, but Gorilla stops him with a gun at his back.

"Don't make me shoot you, kid," Gorilla says evenly. 

Bristling, Jack whirls around and slams the heel of his hand against Gorilla's mask. The man howls in pain, dropping his gun to hold his face, and Jack quickly scoops it up to point it at the slave trader, slowly backing away from them.

Bardom belly laughs, but his eyes are cruel. "You've got spirit, boy. But that will only get you in trouble." He glances at Fox and nods towards Jack. "We don't tolerate insubordination."

In a swift motion Fox's gun is lifted, and before Jack can react he's pulled the trigger. The odd, ringing sound of a plasma bullet being fired echoes in the small shop. 

Jack waits for the pain but it never comes. His eyes, squeezed shut, squint open. The four men in the room are still, and Bardom--the only face he can see--is looking like he just saw a ghost. Before Jack hovers a plasma bullet, harmlessly suspended in the air. He pokes it tentatively, and it drops to the floor with a tinkling clatter.

"Now, I don't think you want to try that again," a deep voice says behind Jack, and he spins to see Mark in the doorway. Their eyes meet and relief floods through Jack. Mark found him. He came for him.

"Christ in heaven," Eagle whispers, the fear evident is his voice. "Is that--"

"Mage Fischbach," Fox despairs, and his gun lowers slightly. 

Mark keeps his eyes on the kidnappers as he advances slowly into the room, like a stalking predator. "Well, at least you know when you're in deep shit," Mark says idly. He reaches Jack's side, glancing down at him and giving him a small smile. He looks up again, and his expression is unforgivingly hard. "From Earth, I take it? You put my home planet to shame."

"Now, Mr. Fischbach," Bardom begins diplomatically, "as I'm sure you know, federation jurisdiction is not valid here, nor is that of Glisa or any other planets or organizations. So you're really just wasting your time. What we are doing is perfectly legal here--"

"Shut that useless orifice before I put a lightning bolt in it," Mark snaps, and Bardom's mouth clamps shut. "Someone kidnapped from a planet that is protected by a jurisdiction, of any kind, and taken to a place such as Solas, is under the protection of whoever is strong enough to enforce it. Do you presume to tell me what I'm capable of doing, in a place where anything is permitted?" His eyes narrow significantly. 

"Of course not," Bardom says easily, "but--"

"Then be quiet," Mark suggests. He looks at Jack, and gently takes the gun from his hands. "You won't need this, I promise." He tosses it aside.

Three rapid-fire shots ring in the small space, and Jack looks with alarm to Fox and Eagle, who both just shot at Mark. But like before, the bullets hang uselessly in the air a foot from his body.

"That," Mark says, looking up with underlying anger evident in his tone, "was unwise." He thrusts out a hand, and Fox is flung hard into the wall behind him. He hits the floor, unconscious, and Eagle watches his companion soar past him. His head snaps back around to Mark and the mage frowns at him. Mark twirls a finger in a circle, and Eagle's arms and legs suddenly go rigid. He topples over, immobile.

Gorilla, apparently the smartest of the three, lifts his hands from his face and into the air in surrender. Jack notes with nasty pride that a trail of blood is leaking down his neck from beneath his mask. Mark mutters a word and in the next moment Gorilla is being bound tightly with the rope that Eagle was holding. Then Mark looks at Bardom.

"Well, you've certainly made your point," the trader says simply. "Take them, then, and have your justice for your little prince."

But Mark stays where he is, glowering at him. "Do you know what this man is to me?" he asks Bardom, motioning to Jack.

"Your employer's grandson?" Bardom replies boredly. 

"My soulmate," Mark corrects in a growl.

Bardom's face pales all the way down his many chins. "Impossible," he retorts. "The boy is Unbranded." 

"Do you dispute me, slaver?" Mark asks, dangerously quiet. While Bardom searches for an answer, Mark waves a hand and the man's mouth closes forcibly. "Never mind, you're in a heap of trouble regardless." With finality Mark snaps his fingers, and four blue spheres of energy appear around the men. The orbs surround their targets fully, and when Mark murmurs the necessary words, they're all gone with an ear-popping whoosh.

Jack stares at Mark in the sudden silence. "Why did you come for me?" he wonders softly.

Mark looks into his eyes with regret and guilt plain on his face. "Because I had to. Because I needed to." He sighs heavily. "It took you getting taken for me to realize it, but I'm not able to be without you." He moves, closing most of the space between them in one step. "It's not right of me after everything I've done to ask, especially here of all places," Mark says ruefully, "but would you do me the gracious honour of--"

"Of course, yes!" Jack says huffily, but he's grinning.

"You didn't let me finish," Mark pouts. "What if I asked you to hold a live rattlesnake?"

"There are worse things," Jack murmurs. Mark looks away, his mouth bent in a sad frown. "Ask me, Mark," he says gently.

Mark smiles a little, looking up again. "Brand me, would you?"

"Definitely," Jack replies, smiling toothily. Mark's smile becomes broader, more beautiful, and he laughs. "Take me home, please," Jack sighs wearily. "I've had enough of Solas to last me a lifetime."

"At once, my lord," Mark says, winking. He casts what Jack is quickly coming to recognize as an apparition spell, and for the first time Jack sees the inside of the blue sphere. He mutters the incantation and Jack feels a curious pressing sensation on every minuscule part of his body. But right as it becomes uncomfortable, the pressure releases and the inside of Bardom's shop drops away in a flash to be instantly replaced with the front courtyard of his home.

Jack teeters a bit but manages to stay upright. He looks around and at his left hand is Mark, looking at him like something incredibly special. Unable to hold eyes with that look for very long, Jack smiles shyly and glances over to the doors. Standing by the main doors into the palace is his family, all his siblings and their spouses, his parents and his grandmother. As he watches, Seamus looks over and sees them and hollers, "He's back!"

The calamitous noise that follows nearly deafens Jack as his family converges on him, all talking at once. His brother Malcolm is the first there, then Seamus, then his father. His sisters follow one after the other, and in the rear comes his mother. His brothers' and sisters' husbands and wives hang back, respecting the family's need to coddle their youngest member.

Julianna takes his face in her hands and, after scowling hard at the bruises there, rains kisses on his face, intermittently scattered with "I'm so glad you're safe" and "I love you". Malcolm sweeps him up, mother and all, in a big hug and won't let go for several seconds. 

When Jack looks up after his mother and brother finally let him go, he glances around and finds his father, standing at Wilhelmina's side, and sees the not-yet-fallen tears in both of their eyes. His father comes forward and crushes him in a hug, whispering in his ear, "I love you so much," and Jack feels wetness on his neck. When Hugh pulls away, Jack's eyes are damp too.

His sisters both cry all over him and flood him with loving, endearing words, and Seamus clasps his head in his hands and kisses his forehead. As Seamus steps back, his grandmother takes her grandson's hands in her delicate ones and says, heartfelt and watery, "My boy, welcome home."

"Good to be home, Gran," he murmurs, and wipes her tears away. She hugs him fiercely but releases him after a moment and looks at Mark.

"Mage Fischbach," she says, and Mark straightens. She smiles slightly. "There's no need for that, lad. What reward would you like for the safe return of my grandson?"

For a long minute Mark is silent, deep in thought. But when he answers it's a simple, "Nothing, Your Majesty. Just knowing your grandson is safe is plenty reward."

Wilhelmina gives him a knowing look, her eyes probing. "I see," she murmurs, but she smiles. "All the same, I think it best that you stay close to Sean, for the time being. Is that acceptable to both of you?"

"Yes," Jack says quickly, probably too quickly. "Yes, Gran, that's per--that's good." He feels the eyes of his entire family on him, but Jack only looks at Mark.

"That's a very good idea, Your Majesty," Mark says, more subdued than Jack. "Although, I've already taken the... culprits into custody. As we speak they ought to be in their own cells beneath the palace."

"Well done, man," Malcolm says with a grin, and claps Mark on the shoulder. Mark startles at first but then grins back. 

"Well," the queen says, "I imagine Sean requires some rest. If you'd be so kind, Mage Fischbach?"

Mark bows to her, then to Jack's parents and siblings, and gestures for Jack to join him. They walk into the palace and directly to Jack's room where, once the door is shut, Jack corners Mark up against it.

"You--you should rest," Mark says, his back pressed against the door. "You've been through an ordeal." His eyes land angrily on the bruises on Jack's face.

"No," Jack says firmly, "what I need is for you to touch me."

"The Brand can wait--" Mark starts, but Jack's closed off expression stops him. "What's that look for?"

Jack takes a slow step back, easing away from him. "Have you already changed your mind?" he almost whimpers.

"No!" Mark says at once, and he's instantly in Jack's personal space. "No, of course not! But it's... it's not important at this very second. You need to sleep, and I need to heal your face before I break something."

"Brand me," Jack requests gently. "And then I'll have all I need." Mark holds his gaze, and the mild anger in his expression melts away to be replaced with a steady, soothing calmness that Jack's never seen in him before. Jack holds out a hand in offering, and without one sliver of hesitation, Mark takes it in his.

Fire courses up Jack's arm and through his whole body like a current, quick and shocking and abrasively hot. He gasps at the same moment that Mark does, and his soulmate's eyes are wide with pain. A searing sensation draws from the lightning fire and focuses, crawling its way across a spot on the inside of Jack's left forearm. It carves his and Mark's sigil into his skin with Soulfire, the power that's within each soul to fuel the Brand. The pain is immense but Jack wouldn't let go even if he could.

Once it's finished, after what seems like hours, the pain subsides into a minor throbbing. Jack scrambles to pull his sleeve up, as does Mark, and then their matching sigils are bared, glowing a subtle white against their skin in the after effects of the Brand's magic.

Jack laughs as he looks down at it. "I never thought I'd see this day," he says with wonder, poking at the extremely tender flesh with a small hiss.

"Me neither," Mark says, his voice low. Jack looks up in time to feel Mark's hands slide over his ears, and his mouth is covered with trembling lips.

A sigh escapes him, and then Jack is throwing his weight into Mark and barricading him back against the door. The kiss turns from gentle to rough, to passionate. Mark devours him, his mouth demanding and his hands firm where they hold his neck. In their eagerness they topple the table by the door, vase and all. It falls with a crash, but the sound doesn't even register to them.

A long time later, Jack lays in his bed under the covers with Mark at his side. His cheek rests on Mark's bare chest, and he listens to the unforgettable sound of his soulmate's heartbeat.

"Lady Augustine was right," he murmurs.

"What was she right about?" Mark mumbles in reply, shifting to look down at him.

Jack peers up at him with a mischievous grin. "Once soulmates get naked together, there's really not a lot able to stop them."

Mark chuckles. "So that's why you were swimming that day," he muses.

"I was out of options, at that point," Jack shrugs, threading his fingers with Mark's. They fit like two halves of a whole. "You weren't... willing, and things weren't promising anyway. I figured I had to try anything, everything to convince you."

A hum travels through Mark's chest. "I think I'll wake you every day with an apology," he says, thoughtful. "I'll wake you with kisses and I'll tell you I love you every minute, every second, so you never doubt me again."

Jack puts his chin on Mark's chest so he can look at him properly. "Stay with me every day until forever, and I'll consider it even," he says, mouth quirked in humour.

Mark pulls him up so Jack rests on the pillows with him, and presses kiss after tender kiss to his mouth. "Forever sounds good to me," he whispers, then captures his soulmate's mouth in a kiss.

His arms slipping around Mark's neck, Jack smiles and thinks, _Me too._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at least 80% sure you can expect a sequel for this in the future, to tie up little loose ends and to feed more into this AU, which I love to death. Thanks for reading!


End file.
